Watchdog

Here is another story on the topic of the potential minefield Newsday will walk as it covers Cablevision and its various properties moving forward.

This one is by us.

I didn't have Cablevision as a kid. At the time I didn't know or care how the cable business worked, of course. All I knew was that when I turned on my TV the Rangers and Knicks were on it and the Islanders and Nets were not.

Which is how I became a Rangers fan despite living in East Northport.

Turns out there has been some trouble of late in the parallel universe that is HDTV, in which I remain an alien.

Verizon's FiOS TV had a shortage of HD set-tops and DVRs for a chunk of winter, causing a backlog of orders. Now that the NCAA Tournament and baseball season are upon us . . . how is that going?

"We started to get new inventories of HD boxes earlier this month and we’ve been fulfilling orders for new customers,'' a Verizon spokeswoman wrote. "As our inventories continue to build, we will fill any back orders that we’ve placed for some customers during the temporary shortage. Motorola has been a great partner to us in expediting the delivery of HD boxes."

Why not just get rid of the backlog in order rather than giving new orders a priority? A spokeswoman wrote, "Getting boxes to new customers will disrupt the least number of people" and promised again back orders will be filled as quickly as possible.

Cablevision, meanwhile, sent out a news release Tuesday reminding one and all its HD boxes are ready for March Madness, and that it charges no extra fee for them.

I do not have an official position on cable vs. phone companies vs. satellite for general TV service. I have Cablevision mostly for professional reasons, as it is the company used by the largest portion of my readers.

My LI-based print readers, anyway. You're still out there, right?

I do have a strong official position on DVRs, though. I have TiVo on one TV and a Cablevision DVR on the other. The former is superior, but Cablevision's version does make it easier to tape one show and watch another.

No more e-mails, please, hockey fans!

Cablevision announced an agreement Friday to offer the NHL's "Center Ice'' package to its digital customers who want to watch out-of-market games.

The package features up to 40 games a week and is available now for $149 for the season. (The price rises to $169 Oct. 16).

Also Friday, Cablevision added the NHL Network to its sports tier, which costs an additional $4.95 per month and includes the NBA's league-run network. The NHL's channel should be available on the iO Sports Pak by the end of the month.

MIke Francesa asserted on WFAN this afternoon that only DirecTV - not cable providers - will be offering TBS in HD for the playoffs.

Then 15 minutes later he said Cablevision and Time Warner had announced they would, in fact, offer TBS in HD, as if the information was hot off the presses.

I'm crushed. Mike, weren't you reading the blog when I was following all this in excruciating detail last week? A reader actually caught Mike reading WatchDog on the air recently, so I know he's a closet member of WatchDog nation.

To make a newspaper guy feel even worse, Chris Russo credited Kevin Burkhardt with the information on Hanley Ramirez that Burkhardt himself credited to Newsday's Anthony Rieber on SNY Sunday. (See item on that below.)

Sigh.