It's been a nasty battle between Time Warner Cable and Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, with the latter even going so far as to buy airtime on local North Carolina radio stations pleading for consumers to prod the carrier until MASN appeared on its lineup. Thankfully for fans of the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals (among other squads), an FCC-appointed arbitrator has finally ordered TWC to carry the network after finding that it "deliberately discriminated" against the station. What has yet to be determined from the decision, however, is whether or not customers will be forced to pay extra to receive it, and more importantly, whether or not this presumably lucrative outcome will push MASN to finally make the leap to HD (if TWC doesn't appeal and win, that is). As it stands, the O's and Nats are two of only a few MLB teams with a home channel that doesn't air any of its games in high-definition, but if you're impetuously determined to see your Birds in HD, you could always find an empty seat (or ten) at
Camden Yards. [
Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]
[Via
The Wolf Web, image courtesy of
Nasty Nats]
posted Jan 22nd 2008 10:08AM
Yeah, MASN's HD programming sucks! If I'm gonna see my Orioles lose 100 games this year...at least let me see it in HD.
I believe that the Nationals and the Orioles are the ONLY two teams that won't be in HD via their home networks in 2008. Knowing how things work at MASN, and judging from the already poor production quality of their SD broadcasts, I don't see MASN HD coming anytime soon :-(
Boy, are we used to seeing faces like that on our players.