Time Warner optimistic about Braves’ TV package

Time Warner’s Dan Santelle is awaiting word that a deal had been struck to carry the 45 Atlanta Braves games being produced by Peachtree TV.

“I really believe it’s going to happen,” Santelle said. “We certainly want to have them on our system. Right now, I don’t know what channel the games would be on, but I’m for putting them in a spot in the lineup that is available to as many people as possible.”

The Braves’ first game to be produced by Peachtree will be their home opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates at 7:10 p.m. Monday. Skip Caray and Chip Caray will be the announcers for the telecasts.

Comcast Cable (available in various parts of the state) will carry the 45-game package. They will air on Comcast systems in South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia (outside the Atlanta metro area) and Asheville, N.C.

Braves fans can get their first look at the team when they face the Washington Nationals at 8 p.m. Sunday on ESPN (cable channel 26, high definition channel 950). Jon Miller and Joe Morgan will do the game.

It is a new era for the Braves on television with SportSouth (cable channel 21) and Fox Sports Net (cable channel 31) doing the majority of Atlanta’s games this season. No one is happier about that than Jeff Genthner, senior vice-president and general manager of the two channels.

“We saw this as an opportunity to position ourselves as the home of the Braves franchise,” Genthner said. “We’re going to offer in-depth coverage of all the games we do. That includes full 30-minute pre-game and post-game shows. We’ll go behind the scene and do more programs like the recent ‘In My Own Words’ with John Smoltz.”

SportSouth and Fox Sports Net combined will televise 106 regular season games, 49 of them in high definition. Jon Sciambi will be the play-by-play announcer Jon Sciambi and Joe Simpson will serve as analysts.

The first high-def games will be Wednesday’s and Thursday’s 7 p.m. home games against the Pirates. The HD telecast will be on Time Warner channel 813. Forty-two of the HD games will be played at Turner Field. The first away HD games will be May 10 at Pittsburgh.

TBS, which used to be the home of the Braves, will be doing a national Sunday game beginning at 1 p.m. April 6 with the Boston Red Sox at the Toronto Blue Jays. Atlanta is scheduled to appear only once on TBS during the first eight weeks of the season.

Baseball bonanza. Time Warner again is offering Major League Baseball’s Extra Innings package, which allows subscribers to watch as many as 80 out-of-market games a week. The cost is $159 for the entire season for those who sign up prior to April 6. It is $199 after that.

The games will air on channels 451-464. Those on channel 450 will be in high definition. You must have a digital converter box to have access to Extra Innings.