Love Those Blackout Rules

Blackout rules, those rules which don’t allow you to watch away broadcasts of your favorite team’s games or view them online have once again proved how useful they are for some NY Time Warner customers.
Time Warner Cable in Manhattan doesn’t have a set station for Yankees broadcasts.  They have a couple of specials channels, and whenever there’s a game in HD, the channel changes from “Off Air” to the game.  They generally include the pre-game and then a 7.5 hour block for the game afterwards.  I’ve seen some people who are able to watch this specials channel all the time (it’s always YES), but I’m not one of them.

The Yankees and Red Sox are playing a double header today.  The first game, 1pm start, was broadcast on Fox.  For some reason the HD Specials channel had the game scheduled on the guide, but if you went to it, you saw nothing but a gray screen.  So, even though it doesn’t look like Fox actually broadcasts the game in 720p like they do for their primetime shows, it’s still nice to watch it widescreen and I do.

Fast forward to 8pm.  The second game is about to start and it’s not scheduled on the HD Specials channel - but the channel is still active from the first game, scheduled to go off at 830pm.  A few seconds after my cable box blinked 830 the broadcasts freezes and the screen goes gray.  I call TW and explain the situation to the person on the other end.  They might have understood the situation in full at first, but after I’m put on hold and told others are calling in I know they do now.  Doesn’t help any, it’s 1h20m later and the channel’s still not accessible (chances are someone just scheduled the wrong game for the specials channel).

Here’s where the blackout rules come into play: INHD has the game on.  If that channel weren’t also gray right now, I’d be able to watch it, even if it’s just a simulcast of NESN HD, but MLB won’t let that happen.

I’m not completely in the dark.  I do have the standard broadcast of the game, but the HD setup wasn’t free.  This game is on three channels, and the two I want to watch aren’t available, one due to my cable company’s mess up, the other due to MLB “protecting” the local broadcaster (the same reason why I can’t watch the game online).

Posted by David M Singer on Sep 16, 2006 at 10:31 PM

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