Comcast, Diamond Sports Talking Again

Comcast and bankrupt Diamond Sports Group have returned to the negotiating table, two and a half months after the latter’s Bally Sports regional sports networks were pulled off the pay TV operator’s Xfinity TV programming grid in a carriage dispute. 

John Ourand reported the resumption of talks via Puck News late last week. Diamond didn't immediately return our emails asking for confirmation that the negotiations have resumed.

According to NextTV, the 15 Bally Sports channels carried by Comcast were removed at the end of April, with Diamond Sports unwilling to cede to the cable company's demand that its RSNs be moved to the more-expensive “Xfinity Ultimate” tier. 

Over the last several years, Comcast has boldly moved RSNs to higher-priced programming packages, relieving non-sports-enthusiast customers of its more-affordable video packages the burden of paying for channels devoted to local teams they don’t care about. It’s the kind of stand you make when you lose more than 2 million linear video customers in just one year. 

Diamond, meanwhile, has a hard July 29 deadline to finally present a restructuring plan to the court, its creditors and its league constituents, the latter of which having expressed deep concern in recent months that Diamond is not a viable local TV partner without the carriage support of Comcast. 

Attorneys for the bankrupt Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary have asked the court to move a deadline for creditors and constituents to object to Diamond's restructuring plan from July 18 to July 24.