By Ian Koski
Managing Editor

If it was an April Fools' Day joke, nobody's laughing. Yankees fans here in the Bronx were unable to watch the Yankees' opener against Baltimore on Monday because Cablevision and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports (Y.E.S.) Network could not reach an agreement to bring the Yankee-owned cable channel into the homes of Cablevision subscribers.

After a month without negotiations, Cablevision President and Chief Executive Officer James Dolan sent a letter last week to Y.E.S. Chairman Leo Hindery making an "extraordinary" and "unprecedented" offer. Mr. Dolan said Cablevision would make a channel available to Y.E.S. and allow Y.E.S. to determine the monthly rate billed to Cablevision's customers. Y.E.S. would then receive every penny of that monthly rate. The offer was consistent with Cablevision's desire to offer Y.E.S. as a premium channel, forcing subscribers to pay an additional monthly fee if they want to get the Y.E.S. Network.

Mr. Hindery flatly and promptly rejected the offer, reasserting his demand that Y.E.S. be offered as part of Cablevision's basic service so that subscribers would not have to pay an additional fee. Such is the case with the Madison Square Garden Network, which is owned by Cablevision, and Fox Sports Net.

The difference, Cablevision officials have maintained, is the amount Y.E.S. wants its carriers to pay. For each of Cablevision's 3 million subscribers, Y.E.S. is asking for $1.85 per month for a total of $72 million per year. Time Warner Cable, R.C.N. Cable, Comcast Cable and DirecTV all agreed to pay that rate, which is five times more than 24-hour news channel C.N.N. charges its cable providers.

Mr. Dolan has called the Y.E.S. rate a "fantasy" given the network's youth and its limited focus. The network will show 130 Yankees games and 75 Nets games, as well as minor league Yankees games, British soccer games and some college sports. Additional programming about the Yankees, like the "Yankeeography" biography series, will fill much of the schedule.

While the other cable and satellite services quickly got on board with Y.E.S., Cablevision held out for months before finally giving up in February.

The stalled negotiations inspired Y.E.S. to launch an advertising campaign on television and radio designed to bring public pressure down on Cablevision. "Ordinary" fans who were "interviewed" expressed their disappointment in Cablevision and said they were switching to DirecTV.

Cablevision launched a campaign of its own to shift the pressure back to Y.E.S. It ran commercials on its cable system boasting the sporting events it does carry, including the 20 games broadcast on WCBS Channel 2, nine games broadcast on WNYW Channel 5 and the three games airing on ESPN. The advertisements did not say that the games on Channels 2 and 5 could be seen by anyone with a television set and antenna.

When negotiations broke off, Cablevision began notifying its New York State subscribers of a state law that provides 30 days to disconnect their cable service without paying a surcharge.

A spokesman for DirecTV said last week that the satellite provider's local sales department has seen a 80 percent increase in calls since March 11 when it launched an advertising campaign centered around the Y.E.S. Network's availability.

DirectTV had predicted to take on between 200,000 and 250,000 new subscribers during the first quarter of 2002, but last month announced a revised prediction of 325,000 subscribers. A spokesman declined to attribute the predicted boost to the success of its Y.E.S. campaign.

The network launched on March 19 and broadcast its first Yankees game that night, a 5-3 exhibition win over the Reds, amid distracting technical glitches.