Keep the pols' paws off my cable TV bill!

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | If you don't think local governments aren't partners with sports franchises and cable TV, you haven't been paying attention to the YES-Cablevision agreement in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

It's been a busy week for New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. His office ended the Broadway musicians strike and got the George Steinbrenner owned YES network onto Charles Dolan's Cablevision and its three million subscribers.

What Bloomberg also did was almost guarantee another Cablevision rate hike for those three million paying customers whether they want the YES network or not because someone has to pay for the network and it won't be Charles or James Dolan.

Bloomberg also spared the New Jersey assembly the embarrassment of being sued if New Jersey forced Dolan to put YES on its cable systems and possibly saved the cable industry from facing a damaging anti-trust lawsuit.

Settling the Broadway dispute affected the producers, actors, musicians, support staff and ticket buyers. But settling the YES dispute affects all of cablevision's customers and that's unfair for those who don't want YES.

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JWR contributor Evan Weiner is a radio commentator on "The Business of Sports" for Westwood One's Metro Networks. He is being presented with the United States Sports Academy's Distinguished Service Award for 2003. Comment on this column by clicking here.

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