Comcast and Chicago Sports Network remain at impasse

Comcast continues to drive a hard bargain for networks that carry live sports.

The brand-new Chicago Sports Network (CHSN), the successor to NBC Sports Chicago which ceased operations last month, remains in a carriage dispute with Comcast, the city’s largest pay-TV provider, one day before the Chicago Blackhawks are set to play their first locally-broadcast regular-season game.

Per a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, negotiations between the two sides can be described as “day to day and hour to hour.”

CHSN, which is the new television home for the White Sox, Bulls, and Blackhawks, launched on October 1st. It’s carried preseason games and studio programming thus far, and is available on other Chicago-area providers such as DirecTV and Astound/RCN. However, Comcast is continuing to play hardball when it comes to carriage negotiations.

The country’s second-largest multichannel video provider is also in a similar dispute with Scripps Sports over carrying the Ion affiliate that is set to broadcast Utah Hockey Club games this season. Just this week, Comcast settled a five-week dispute with Fox over carriage of the Big Ten Network in West Coast markets.

This summer, Comcast found itself in two high-profile carriage disputes, one with Disney and one with Diamond Sports Group, owner of the former Bally Sports RSNs.

Central to nearly every single one of these negotiations is tiering. Comcast wants the ability to include sports networks in a more premium tier, rather than in its basic tier, as to not pass on the higher cost of these channels to customers who do not watch them. The networks, of course, want inclusion on the basic tier to collect more in per-subscriber fees.

For Chicago sports fans and Comcast customers fearing they may be unable to watch the Blackhawks come Friday, CHSN is also available as an over-the-air network and can be accessed via antenna.

[Chicago Sun-Times]