Fox Follies

Kearny Mesa is home to San Diego's Fox TV affiliate. As you'd guess, several folks who work there would like to watch the Padres telecasts produced by Fox Sports San Diego, even if only for a few minutes. Fox employees watching a Fox telecast inside a Fox building--what's the story here? The story, said one of those Fox employees, is that the FSSD feed doesn't enter the Fox building. "We can't watch Fox Sports San Diego; it's not on the TVs there," the Fox person told me.

Let's review: Fox is paying the Padres about $30 million this year -- twice what Cox paid last year -- as part of a 20-year deal worth about $1.2 billion, yet because of a stalemate between Fox and cable providers, more than 40 percent of San Diego County still doesn't get the telecasts, and even the Fox TV affiliate in Kearny Mesa can't get the cable feed. The Padres say they're not to blame. Fox says greedy Time Warner is to blame. Time Warner says greedy Fox is to blame. And one of the well-paid execs within MLB, talking to me in March, said Bud Selig isn't to blame because cable negotiations are "hand to hand combat."

At this point in the skit, a television is blown to smithereens. Wait, this isn't a skit?