A DirecTV spokesman said the company stood by a statement last week that it wants “an agreement with the owners of CSN Houston that allows customers to choose whether they want to pay to see the games or not. We are ready and willing to have that discussion any time.”
Does this mean including the channel in different tiers or are they proposing the station be available as a premium package like HBO, Starz, etc? If the former, don't they already do this? FSSW is available in most of the tiers locally, but not in the basic. I don't see this really being an issue.
But, if it's the latter, that would seem to be setting a precedent. At least locally, the only channels you can add to a tier for an additional fee are the Premium channels. If you want Comcast Sports Northeast (or whatever), you have to subscribe to a higher package to get it. In that regard, it sounds like they want the benefit of a la carte pricing, but, of course, they'll never fully commit to the idea. Who gets shafted in this scenario is the customer, as they can charge whatever they want, and the Astros because they won't have nearly the number of subscribers in this scenario.
