City Council Speaker Christine Quinn says if the MSG Network and Time Warner Cable can’t come up with a deal that will return Knicks basketball to 2 million New York City residents who’ve been blacked out during Linsanity, they’ll have to answer to some angry fans.
The network and cable provider have been unable to agree on royalty fees, prompting MSG to pull programming from Time Warner customers on Jan. 1.
Now that Jeremy Lin has captivated New York for seven straight games, the customers want their Knicks games back more than ever. Both sides reportedly reopened negotiations this week amid increasing pressure from viewers, but have yet to reach an agreement.
Quinn hopes to make it happen – and quickly.
The mayoral contender wrote letters to executives at both MSG and Time Warner warning that if their newly reopened negotiations do not produce a resolution within two weeks, the City Council would hold hearings and ask both sides to explain themselves to New Yorkers, reports The New York Post.
“At a time when all New Yorkers are getting together behind Jeremy Lin and the New York Knicks, now is the time to resolve this dispute once and for all,” Quinn wrote in the letters obtained by the Post.
Time Warner subscribers in the city have been forced to watch Lin’s “magical Cinderella story,” as Quinn described it, unfold on TV screens in bars, on the couches of their DirectTv or Cablevision-subscriber friends or, in the worst cases, read about it the next day in the papers.
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Quinn’s ability to force an agreement between MSG and Time Warner is limited because the cable provider inked a renewed deal with the city last year, but the idea is to amass enough public pressure to move the needle.
Civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel also weighed in on the dispute Friday, writing to company executives and calling the impasse "wrong and unfair."
The Knicks face off against New Orleans Friday night. They play Dallas on Sunday, which, Time Warner customers will be glad to hear, is a nationally televised game.
