Good news for baseball fans and Charter cable customers: Los Angeles Dodgers channel SportsNet LA will start airing on Charter Tuesday, marking the first time in more than a year anyone other than Time Warner Cable customers will be able to regularly watch games.
“The Dodgers are an iconic franchise and part of the fabric of the community,” Charter Communications Inc. Chief Executive Tom Rutledge said in a statement. “We are very excited to be bringing the Dodgers back to Charter customers in the L.A. area.”
The move breaks a log jam of more than a year that has prevented thousands of local fans from being able to get the SportsNet LA channel, which is owned by Time Warner Cable. About 300,000 local Charter subscribers will be affected.
“SportsNet LA continues to deliver unparalleled coverage of the Dodgers and we hope other providers come on board soon, so all fans can enjoy the network’s first-rate programming,” Los Angeles Dodgers Chief Executive Stan Kasten said in a statement.
Dodgers spokesman Joe Jareck said Charter subscribers will not incur any extra fees when SportsNet LA is added to their channel lineup.
Charter said it would add the Dodgers channel soon after finalizing plans to acquire Time Warner Cable in a nearly $57-billion deal that could make the combined company the largest pay-TV provider in Southern California.
Art Laboe Returns
Art Laboe is coming back to the airwaves on KDAY-FM (93.5). Laboe will make his debut on the Hancock Park hip-hop and R&B station this weekend, a homecoming of sorts for the broadcaster, who had a show on 93.5 in the 1960s.
Otto Padron, president of station owner Meruelo, describes Laboe as “an L.A. legend like Vin Scully and Chick Hearn,” he said in a statement.
“The Art Laboe Connection,” his request and dedications show, will be on the air from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. every Sunday night. The show had been unavailable in Los Angeles over the past few months after the program was dropped by IHeartMedia Inc.’s KRRL-FM (92.3).
“I love L.A., I love music, and I love our dedicated fans,” Laboe said in a statement.
Laboe is known to have been the first deejay to play rock ’n’ roll on the West Coast and is credited with being among the first to integrate his radio show.
