The Sabres Hockey Network has produced Sabres games since the team's days on the
Empire Sports Network; Empire and the Sabres were both under the control of
John Rigas from 1996 until Rigas's arrest in 2003. Prior to the launch of the Empire Sports Network, Sabres telecasts were managed under the brand
Niagara Frontier Sports Network and syndicated to local television stations. NFSN briefly owned the station now known as
WNYO-TV in the late 1980s but sold off that station after a short time after it became clear that scrambled subscription over-the-air television (a proposition that NFSN had planned on being its primary business model) was not going to be a viable enterprise and launched the cable- and satellite-exclusive Empire Sports Network instead. On September 10, 2016, MSG launched a Buffalo-centric version of
MSG Network called
MSG Western New York, which incorporates content from both the Sabres and the
Buffalo Bills including 70 Sabres games. The play-by-play and commentary is radio simulcasted over video, an arrangement unique in the National Hockey League. The other 12 games air only on the radio network, including all games broadcast on the league's national outlets. In
New York City and the surrounding areas, Sabres games against the
New York Rangers,
New York Islanders or
New Jersey Devils (other hockey teams to which MSG owns TV rights) have usually carried the Sabres Hockey Network feed on the
SAP of MSG or
MSG Plus. The Sabres also have the capabilities to broadcast preseason home games on the team's Web site. MSG Western New York is carried on
DirecTV, channel . The network is also available on
Charter Spectrum, the predominant cable provider in New York State. The channel is available on
Verizon FiOS, with high-definition feeds only arriving in late 2011 after a protracted legal dispute in which MSG refused to provide Verizon with an HD feed. The channel and therefore most Sabres games are not available on
Dish Network due to a years-long continuing
carriage dispute between the Dish and
MSG Networks. In Canada, Sabres games were previously available in the
Niagara Region through
Bell TV. The practice of syndicating games to a local broadcast station has happened only once since MSG took over the broadcast contract: WGRZ and
WHEC-TV were given rights to simulcast MSG's coverage of the February 11, 2012 game between the Sabres and the
Tampa Bay Lightning, as a one-time goodwill gesture in the ongoing dispute between
Time Warner Cable and MSG; the two sides had an approximately 1-month contract dispute that left games unavailable on cable for most of the state. Games carried by
TNT, TBS,
ESPN, ABC, and
CBC Television are not produced by the Sabres, and these television broadcasts are not considered to be part of the Sabres Hockey Network. The network produces "radio only" broadcasts for its terrestrial affiliates when a game airs on U.S. national television. ==Personalities, past and present==