MVN - Most Valuable Network

Mom always said, “Don’t Play Ball with MASN”.

I have a few pet peeves.   Long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, children.  One of the strongest ones is being cajoled into acting as a stooge for corporate interests.  I know, call me crazy, but such things don’t really float my boat.  Right now the Number 1 offender in this category is the Nats own TV station MASN.

You see where I live in North Carolina, Time Warner Cable doesn’t show MASN.  This is nothing beyond your typical money fight between two large entities.  MASN wants to charge X dollars to TWC AND be on the standard tier to maximize potential eyeballs and therefore potential ad dollars.  TWC either wants MASN to ask for less money or be put onto a pay tier, to recoup the costs.  Ideally, I’d be on MASN’s side because we are talking about two corporations trying to maximize profits.  Neither side is particularly noble in that regard so I’d side with the group giving me what I want, namely baseball games.  However MASN ruins that with their whole “Play Ball Now” campaign.

You see these types of campaigns all the time, more often in politics but sometimes in the corporate world.  You are fed one-sided, half-truths to try to call you to action.  To get the individual to work for a larger cause.  Not too offensive when it’s a referendum, very offensive to me when it’s getting more money for MASN.  TWC is by no means a saintly business, but they are remaining relatively quiet.  No ads saying “MASN wants to RAISE YOUR CABLE BILL” or “We want to give you baseball but MASN WON’T LET US”.   Contrast that to the every 10 minutes annoying commercials I hear on the local sports talk radio station, not to mention TV spots, print ads, and emails to my personal address and dammit if I’m not swayed to side with the cable company.  (It helps, of course, that the public is apathetic on the issue.  After months of bombardment only 277 complaints to the attorney general’s office.  My guess is only a couple thousand calls to TWC.  Easily ignorable numbers for the cable company.)

In my new role as defacto TWC stooge, some of the half-truths and misrepresntations by MASN:

“Time Warner is refusing to carry MASN to its customers.”

The classic half-truth.  True in some sense, but ignores the other side to best promote an agenda. TWC is refusing to carry MASN just as much as MASN is refusing to allow TWC to carry it.  It’s not a zero-sum game here where it would cost TWC nothing to flip a switch and put MASN on, but MASN wants you to believe it is.   They can’t say it, because it’s a lie, but they can imply it all they want.

“Time Warner has carried the Baltimore Orioles on basic cable for decades throughout North Carolina.”  

This is not so bad, except that in the other ads I’ve heard they like to say “carrying local baseball” for years.  Of course, by local they do mean Baltimore.  Sorry, but I don’t consider a local sports team one where in order to most easily see a game I have to plan a weekend getaway.   (Of course this could all be solved if MLB would end their idiotic “Every place in America Has a Local Team” blackout rules, as MASN is really just taking advantage of that designation, but that’s a complaint for another time)

” features 100 games of the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Cubs, Phillies and Braves”

This isn’t a half-truth or misrepresentation, but it bothers me on another level.  They spend all this time pushing themselves as a local channel, only to basically say “We know you’re not really fans of the Orioles and Nationals - but you are probably a fan of one of these teams!  Go Complain!” 

“MASN carries over 200 NCAA football, basketball, and lacrosse games featuring local North Carolina teams. “

When you hear “local North Carolina teams” what do you think of?  UNC and Duke? NC State and Wake Forest?   Hell, maybe now App State.   Sorry.   They generally mean ECU football and UNC-Wilmington basketball, mixed in with some lower-level teams say like Gardner-Webb.  ECU football is not a small thing, but when it’s the biggest thing you’ve got (and it is) that’s a hard sell.

By the way…Lacrosse?  Seriously?  

“Time Warner’s head of programming theorized that “very few people” would watch MASN’s telecasts of the Sidney Lowe and Tom O’Brien Shows, the Skip Holtz and Rickey Stokes Shows or the Roy Williams and Sylvia Hatchell Shows.”

This is from the email.  Read this and see the scrolling banner at the official website and you’d think these coaches shows are ONLY on MASN.  Deliberate manipulation here.  These program are still available on cable and broadcast TV stations, as they always have been, and probably at a more reasonable hour than 3AM after the third airing of “Ravens Rewind” or whatever (this is complete conjecture by me)

“In June, every executive of the state’s nine minor league baseball teams signed a joint letter to the President of Time Warner Cable, urging the Connecticut-based company to carry MASN”… “Because the network is locally owned and operated, MASN is committed to promoting and covering local teams. “

Ooooh.  See how evil TWC is?  They aren’t even from around here!   They are based in some place called  ”Connect-I-Cut”.  Where the hell is that!  A Yankee state, probably! Got a lot of crime there, too, I bet.   MASN, though, MASN is your neighbor.  Lives just down the street.  Goes to your Baptist church. Gets Bojangles in the morning.  Sips sweet tea at dinner while eating barbecue and hush puppies.  Maybe sneaks in a cigarette filled with that beautiful golden leaf before bed. 

Well, MASN, you sound right neighborly.  Let me just come over to your house with a pie …what’s the address?  “333 WEST CAMDEN STREET, BALTIMORE, MD ”??!   That wasn’t even a Confederate state!

I suspect, unless MLB changes its rules up, that MASN will eventually get on TWC one way or another.   And if it does, great.  More baseball is always good.  But for now, I want MASN just to shut up or be straight up with NC.   It’s not a local station.  It’s a 60% Baltimore/ 35% DC Station that happens to have a bit of NC programming and some major sports Carolinians might be interested in.  Shut-up and negotiate.   Don’t try to leverage me.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 9:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.