Take Me Out to the Brawl Game

Time Warner Cable was quick to react to MSG yesterday after the NY sports net said both it and Fox Sports NY would drop off the MSO’s lineup if a carriage agreement wasn’t hammered out before Sun (Cfax,7/29). Cablevision [CVC], which owns the 2 nets, is reportedly asking for a 38% percent increase in its carriage fees. Besides the steep price increase, Time Warner said other factors made a timely resolution unlikely. Cablevision has tied the Metro channel in with MSG and Fox Sports, a property Time Warner doesn’t find at all attractive. At this stage of the game, all that Mets fans can hope for is for Cablevision to agree to another extension, a TWC spokesman said, adding that about one-third of all remaining Mets games will be carried by WPIX or the local Fox affiliate. While many Amazins fans are understandably shaken by word that their local 9 will be harder to catch throughout the remainder of the season-ff predictably, there’s lots of talk about switching to DBS on a number of Mets-centric online message boards-1 long- suffering booster summed up the situation with an air of resigned indifference: "They’ll be doing us a favor when they pull the plug on MSG. Season’s over. The Mets stink." — Time Warner is running crawls on The Weather Channel and TV Guide Channel (ch 51) advising subs of the situation.