Standoff over Dodgers TV channel goes into extra innings

When the Los Angeles Dodgers take the field on April 6, it will mark the start of another shutout television season for long-suffering fans. Time Warner Cable remains the only major pay-TV company in Southern California carrying SportsNet LA, the cable channel owned by the Dodgers. That leaves more than 70 percent of the homes in Greater Los Angeles unable to regularly tune in to Dodger games for the second straight year. The 2015 season opens with little hope that a yearlong stalemate over programming fees will be resolved any time soon.

The hang-up continues to be the price of the channel that Time Warner Cable wants to charge other pay-TV providers, as well as looming ownership changes for the two main players in the dispute: Time Warner Cable and DirecTV. Neither side has engaged in meaningful negotiations in 2015. Until new bosses arrive, executives at those companies appear unwilling to make concessions to end the standoff. A resolution is not expected until regulators in Washington complete their review of two pending media mergers: Comcast's proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable, and AT&T's acquisition of DirecTV.