Deadline Nears for TV Negotiations

Major League Baseball continued to negotiate yesterday with cable operators and the Dish Network in an effort to persuade them to carry the Extra Innings package of out-of-market games and the fledgling MLB Channel.

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M.L.B. made a seven-year, 0 million deal with DirecTV last month and gave InDemand, a cable consortium that is composed of Comcast, Time Warner and Cox, as well as Dish, DirecTV’s satellite rival, until last night to match DirecTV’s contract.

Tim Brosnan, M.L.B.’s executive vice president for business, said that the deadline would expire at the end of today.

“We continue to talk,” he said, “and we wouldn’t have extended the deadline if we didn’t think we could bring everybody in.”

If a deal cannot be reached, DirecTV will carry Extra Innings exclusively. DirecTV has agreed to make the MLB Channel available to 15 million subscribers in 2009; the league and InDemand have differed over the terms of making the network available to its digital cable subscribers.

InDemand and Dish would like a stake in the channel; for being the first to agree to carry it, DirecTV owns 20 percent.

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