By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man – @tvanswerman
SNY, the TV home of the New York Mets, says YouTube TV will lose its signal on July 1 if the two sides don’t reach a new carriage agreement by then.
In a statement on Twitter, the regional sports network said:
“Despite our good faith efforts, YouTube TV is preparing to drop SNY and our exclusive live New York Mets games on July 1. We feel an obligation to inform YouTube TV subscribers that they will lose SNY’s leading coverage of the Mets, Jets and all of New York’s professional and collegiate sports teams.”
The RSN suggests that YouTube TV subscribers consider switching to a provider that carries SNY. The channel has established a web site with a list of possible provider replacements.
YouTube TV responded with the following statement:
“We unfortunately haven’t been able to reach a new agreement with SNY. We’re open to continuing conversations with SNY & the MLB in the hope of restoring their content on YouTube TV! You’ll still be able to watch Mets games on nationally televised channels like FOX, ESPN & TBS.”
YouTube TV, which is owned by Google, carries few regional sports networks compared to other pay TV distributors. Besides SNY, the streamer only has the NBC Sports RSNs. The service does not carry the AT&T regional sports networks, the Bally Sports regional sports nets or the Yes Network, the Pac 12 Network, the Longhorn Network, NESN, Altitude, Marquee Sports Network, MASN or SportsNet LA.
Update: YouTube TV has notified subscribers via e-mail that SNY will no longer be available on June 30 at 11:59 p.m. ET. However, it is telling subs on Twitter that it’s open to continuing negotiations with SNY to keep the channel. So long as YouTube is maintaining that it’s still willing to negotiate, we’ll stay with the ‘Could’ headline instead of ‘Will’ headline. But it’s looks likely that SNY will leave the streamer on July 1.
Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.
— Phillip Swann
@tvanswerman
Well, it looks like I am heading to Directv Stream after this one. It just gets so tiresome with all these carriage disputes. Thanks for letting us know.
I switched to YouTubeTV because they carried SNY. This is a bait-and-switch maneuver. YouTubeTV (i.e., Google) is proving that it doesn’t care how it screws its customers. That is not a viable long-term strategy for business success.
Apparently MLB isn’t as popular as it claims.