When top-ranked tennis player Rafael Nadal was in danger of being upset, Fox Sports Carolinas stuck with his match in the Sony Ericsson Open, causing hockey fans to miss the first few minutes of the Carolina Hurricanes' 4-2 victory over the New York Rangers on Thursday, including Eric Staal's goal that made it 1-0.
Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina upset Nadal 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 in a match that took longer than expected. Hurricanes spokesman Kyle Hanlin said FS Carolinas made the decision to stay with the match as it went into a tiebreak at about 6:55 p.m. By the time the tennis match ended, the hockey game was 4 minutes, 17 seconds old (about 7:15 p.m.). Staal scored at 4:28, and cable subscribers got the telecast at 4:52, Hanlin said, adding that satellite TV subscribers could see the game from the start.
The HD telecast was delayed, too, on cable.
The network has informed the Canes that viewers in North Carolina will be switched to the Penguins-Canes game at 7 p.m. Saturday, regardless of how long the Florida-Vanderbilt baseball game goes.
That said, FS Carolinas simply has to do better by hockey fans in a hockey market. Even when things go right, there aren't nearly enough Canes games in HD.
Comments
the reason
Sat, 04/04/2009 - 08:52 — cpjuengedish has multiple alternate channels that can broadcast games
so while the tennis match was finishing on the regualr FSN channel,
the hurricanes game started fine on one of the alternate sports channels.
canes games are always on a alt channel on DISH.
i havent watched the actually FSN channel in years.
cable only has one fsn channel and no alternates (with a hd version that only plays a duplicate hd version of whats broadcast on the regular channel)
this means fsn has to decide what goes through to each area region of TWC.
if i had his job, i would probably have kept the tennis match on too.
its hard to make the call to end coverage of something before the ending, especially a potential nadal upset (which ended up happening)
I dont buy the explanation either
Fri, 04/03/2009 - 23:14 — vdotuthis explanation is garbage. the HD and SD versions of FSCAR are two separate feeds. I was really ticked last night when I got home and the first 15 minutes of the DVRed game were a test pattern.
Just another TWC screw up if you ask me.
its not true that they are
Sat, 04/04/2009 - 08:54 — cpjuengeits not true that they are completely different feeds
I'm confused. If the
Fri, 04/03/2009 - 21:45 — fanI'm confused. If the decision was FS-Carolinas, then why did satellite customers not have the issue? Doesn't that seem like a TWC-only issue?
They can make amends by
Fri, 04/03/2009 - 19:48 — MichaelCFThey can make amends by allowing the remaining games in HD!!!