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Altis USA Customers were unable to access MSG Networks early Wednesday morning due to a shipping dispute between the cable TV operator and James Dolan’s regional sports channel.

Customers of Altice USA’s Optimum cable television service lost access to the NBA’s New York Knicks and NHL’s New York Rangers, New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils early Wednesday morning. The outage occurred as the Knicks were on an eight-game winning streak and had a game scheduled for Wednesday night.

Negotiations between Altice USA and MSG Networks broke down due to a dispute over fees. This is common in discussions like this. The outage signals the continued struggles of regional sports networks as customers rapidly abandon cable TV bundles and carriers push back on higher prices.

Both Altice USA and MSG Networks released separate statements regarding the dispute early Wednesday morning.

MSG Networks said in a statement: “We made a number of fair and reasonable offers to Altice seeking to pay less than last year.” “Altice has rejected all of them, including our offer to continue broadcasting the MSG network while we continue our efforts to reach an agreement. We remain prepared to negotiate in good faith. be.”

However, Altice USA said in a statement that “MSG Networks is demanding exorbitant programming fees, which may increase our customers’ cable bills, and to add insult to injury, MSG Networks is “We are asking our company to make these channels available to the vast majority of people.” Optimizing for video subscribers means customers are paying for content they don’t watch. ”

Altice USA turned to MSG Networks’ streaming options for customers who still need access to their teams.

New York-based Altice USA had more than 1.9 million residential cable TV customers as of Sept. 30, down about 77,000 from the same period last year.

The regional sports network business has been severely impacted as consumers switch from traditional cable TV bundles to streaming options. In 2024, Diamond Sports, the owner of the largest portfolio of these networks, won court approval to emerge from bankruptcy protection after suffering the same headwinds.

Like other regional sports networks, MSG Networks launched a $29.99/month streaming option in 2023. In 2024, MSG Networks partnered with YES Network, which features local New York Yankees games, to offer an integrated service called the Gotham Sports App for $359.99 per year or $41.99 per month.

The high prices of these streaming options indicate that regional sports networks need to be careful not to further disrupt the cable TV model or violate their agreements with distributors. These deals with cable TV operators help support the billions of dollars in fees that networks pay professional sports teams to air their games.