The distribution match between Tennis Channel and Cablevision has gone to the operator.
Tennis Channel, which for years had been negotiating for better positioning with the predominant cable operator in the New York DMA, issued a statement this afternoon indicating that it will make the service available to Cablevision's sports tier.
The move ends a carriage stalemate that cost the operator's subscribers a chance to see Tennis' comprehensive coverage of the U.S. Open tennis championships.
On Aug. 26, Cablevision, which became a member of the National Cable Television Cooperative, declared it was opting for the co-op's contract with the network to position Tennis on its sports tier, the iO Sports Pak, which houses 15 networks and retails for 5.95 per month.
The network said it had legal issues with Cablevision's unilaterally putting out a press release about its wont to launch the service and that it wasn't given a 30-day notification period to do. As such, it elected not to authorize its signal and none of its 240 hours of coverage from its inaugural presentation of the U.S. Open was available to Cablevision subscribers.
For its part, NCTC said it was "unaware of any previous launch request where Tennis Channel delayed authorization for 30 days."
