Charter Communications has tapped longtime programming executive Michael Bair to lead the company's news and sports channels, including three Los Angeles-area regional sports networks, acquired by merging with Time Warner Cable, executives in the MVPD community confirmed Tuesday.
Bair, slated to be an executive VP reporting to Charter chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge, according to sources, becomes responsible for the former TWC's 17 news channels (including NY 1) across the country and the three Los Angeles area sports networks: TimeWarnerCable SportsNet, home of the Los Angeles Lakers NBA team; SportsNetLA, owned by Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers and managed by the cable company; and Spanish-language sister network TimeWarnerCable Deportes. Charter also inherited Time Warner Cable’s 27% interest in SportsNet NY, a joint venture with Comcast and the New York Mets.
A big task for Bair will be to find a way to get TWC SportsNet widely distributed, beyond existing deals with TWC, Bright House Networks and Charter, which are all part of the same company now.
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