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Table of Contents

• Next Text: Cinevere fixes the broken theatrical mo …

• T-Mobile and Verizon collectively serve their 10 m …

• AT&T and Verizon shed another 5,000 jobs in Q3

• DOJ siding with Fubo on antitrust beef against Ven …

• DirecTV’s private-equity overlord is beefing with …

Next Text: Cinevere fixes the broken theatrical movie biz, more RSNs tear down the wall, things somehow get worse for the L.A. Times, more

Our weekly weekend SMS exchange between veteran reporters David Bloom and Daniel Frankel on all things technology, media and telecom

DANIEL FRANKEL: Well, David, on this Friday morning, I’m going to stop looking at these terrifyingly close election polls and these slightly less scary but still very obviously declining velocity numbers for Dodgers World Series Game 1 starting pitcher Jack Flaherty. And I’ll just get right into it — it seems that a kind of regional sports networks “glasnost” might finally be at hand, with more and more professional teams available beyond the pricey pay TV paywall, post the industry meltdown that culminated in the disastrous Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy. Since that Chapter 11 process started in March 2023, more than a dozen NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball clubs have had their local games break out of pay TV shackles. And the Bally Sports channels, officially rebranded last week under the “FanDuel Sports Network” banner, are even more free of pay TV restrictions following Fubo’s announcement last week that it will allow users to subscribe to third-party premium services like the bankrupt FanDuel RSNs without paying $60 a month for a base-tier subscription to the Fubo virtual pay TV bundle. Here in Los Angeles, as the Lakers last week embarked on an awkwardly forced and gaudily staged campaign to put LeBron James on the court simultaneously with his vastly unqualified son, Charter Communications informed me via a reminder email that my broadband subscription is good enough to get me streaming access to Lakers RSN Spectrum SportsNet via the NBA app. (Charter’s sharp CEO, Chris Winfrey, gets it — beyond bundling Charter’s core product, broadband connectivity, with affordable mobile service, free video is another way to keep me from defecting to fixed wireless access.)

Meanwhile, over in Colorado, where Stan Kroenke’s RSN, Altitude Sports, has been at odds with Comcast since 2019, the exclusive local TV home of the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche is now available as a direct-to-consumer app, too, with Ted Leonsis’ and Rick Allen’s tech shop ViewLift handling the, er, technical lifting for the $20-a-month “Altitude+.” Then again, in Chicago, three weeks after launch, Jerry Reinsdorf’s new Chicago Sports Network still doesn’t have carriage on the largest local pay TV distributor, Comcast. And as the NBA’s Bulls and NHL’s Blackhawks get into their respective seasons, fans are growing concerned. Front Office Sports reported last week that the dispute has “no end in sight”… kind of like the Bulls’ title drought. CHSN, as it’s acronym-ically known, did announce Friday that it forged a carriage agreement with Fubo … which has that new aforementioned policy regarding third-party networks. A few weeks back, CHSN President Jason Coyle discussed the Comcast impasse with Sports Business Journal. (You can watch that interview below.) Listen, Fox was just able to convince Comcast to carry the Big Ten Network in its lower “Popular” tier on the West Coast. But outside of that capitulation, I haven’t heard of a situation where Comcast budged in any recent RSN carriage dispute.

DAVID BLOOM: At least Chicago still has Da Bears, with former Heisman Trophy-winning USC quarterback Caleb Williams looking increasingly at ease and hyper-competent. That should warm some bones in the brutal Chicago winter. Comcast has made some clear decisions on how it will handle lesser offerings, which includes sports networks it doesn’t control. That West Coast exception was a moment of grace for markets left suddenly in the dark by college football realignment, but it’s likely temporary. I’d expect more streaming and broadcast deals like what Altitude Sports and Monument Sports in Washington, D.C., have done, as franchises take more control of their own messaging, games and content for their biggest fans (besides George Wendt).