Asked what he and YES could do to jump-start the talks, he said there wasn’t much to be done. “I can’t turn us back on,” he said. “And it’s not realistic for me to lower my price below what the bigger guys in the market are paying. It would cause chaos.”

YES is the most expensive regional sports network, according to calculations by SNL Kagan, the media research firm. YES’s subscriber fee of $5.36 a month is above SportsNet LA’s $4.59. But one major factor separates them. YES has two anchor teams: the Yankees (who averaged 259,000 viewers last season) and the Nets (whose audience has been nearly halved, to 44,000, in a dismal season largely without Comcast customers). But the Dodgers are the only denizens of SportsNet LA.

The Dodgers’ network is worth its fee only as a justification for the daffy $8.35 billion Time Warner Cable is paying to carry the Dodgers on SportsNet LA for 25 years. The only truly compliant taker for the Dodgers’ network has been Time Warner Cable, which is also the dominant cable operator in Los Angeles. Charter became compliant in June only after it had agreed to acquire Time Warner Cable, a transaction that government regulators have not yet approved. Before that, it was a recalcitrant party.

In the past week or so, there has been the illusion of action in Los Angeles. Time Warner Cable made two offers to the companies you could call the Resistance: DirecTV, AT&T, Cox and Verizon. The first was the Vin Scully discount: a one-year, 30 percent cut to the SportsNet LA fee, which would presumably revert to the higher one after Scully calls his final game, and the fight would ignite anew.

So far, no one has said yes to the cut-rate “Get Your Scully Now” deal, or to another, longer-term proposal.

For Dodgers fans deprived of SportsNet LA, there are few options for watching their team, except to become customers of Time Warner Cable, Charter or Bright House Networks (which Charter is also acquiring). Or they can wait for the occasional game on ESPN, Fox or FS1. But they cannot watch any games on a local broadcast station because the Dodgers do not have a deal with one, as they did in the past.

And while most Yankees games are carried by YES, 21 will be shown on WPIX-TV. But the first one will not be seen until April 30.