The MSG Network (MSG) is an American regional cable and satellite television network, and radio service owned by Sphere Entertainment.—a spin-off of the main Madison Square Garden Company operation (itself a spin-off of local cable provider Cablevision).

The channel is named after the Madison Square Garden sports and entertainment venue in Midtown Manhattan, home of the Knicks and Rangers.

What would become MSG debuted on October 15, 1969, with an NHL hockey game between the New York Rangers and the Minnesota North Stars.

The channel, which at the time did not even have a name, was carried by Manhattan Cable Television under a one-year, 125-event deal that was signed in May 1969.

At the time, the cable provider, which had televised New York Knicks and Rangers post-season games the previous spring for a $25,000 rights fee, had only 13,000 subscribers.

Around the same time, a separate network was created by the Madison Square Garden Corp. to distribute 125 events to New York-area cable systems.

On October 5, 2006, MSG underwent an extensive rebrand with the introduction of a new logo and graphics package, and the removal of the word "Network" from the channel's promotions.

Since the rebrand, the channel has incorporated more entertainment-oriented programming, including concerts and professional boxing and wrestling cards that have taken place at Madison Square Garden or Radio City Music Hall (both operated by MSG Entertainment).

(Full length broadcasts of Madison Square Garden WWWF/WWF wrestling shows had already been previously screened by the MSG Network since the 1970s.)

Since 2013, MSG has also aired games from the Hartford Wolf Pack, the New York Rangers' farm club in the AHL.

It also runs extended highlights from concerts held at MSG or other venues owned by the Dolan family through the Cablevision Systems Corporation, along with other shows focused on New York musicians – which are frequently used as filler programming in blackout zones; as well as movies – generally sports-related, in addition to some Hollywood blockbusters and several New York sports-related fiction or documentary programs that were originally broadcast on ESPN, which are most commonly seen during the summer NHL and NBA offseason.

[18][19] MSG also airs the Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off college hockey tournament through its affiliation with Bally Sports.

MSG formerly carried games from the Big East Conference, along with the coaches shows for Rutgers and St. John's University.

Aired numerous times during the day, the program originated as the sports-focused MSG Sportsdesk similar to ESPN's SportsCenter, until a format change that occurred as part of MSG's 2006 rebranding and reformatting in which sporting events remain the primary focus while a secondary focus was placed on all events at Madison Square Garden.

Anchors included Jason Horowitz, Deb Placey, Tina Cervasio, Al Trautwig, Greg Gumbel, Marv Albert, Jonathan Coachman, and Bill Daughtry.

Along with coverage of Garden-related entertainment news, this was intended to prevent direct competition with SportsNite on SportsNet New York.

MSG, NY was taped inside a street-level studio, with a window overlooking Madison Square Garden across the street.

The program originally aired as a half-hour broadcast on Tuesday through Saturdays (with no editions on Sundays and Mondays, possibly as they were considered "low-viewership nights"), at about 10 or 10:30 p.m. Eastern time, with the exact time dependent on sports events schedules, before expanding to an hour-long nightly broadcast in 2008, based on improved ratings over its predecessor Sportsdesk.

These include: From 1989 to 2001, the channel held cable television rights to the New York Yankees Major League Baseball franchise.

[34] MSG was removed from Time Warner Cable at midnight on December 31, 2011, as the two companies could not agree on a new carriage contract; the network was restored on all TWC systems on February 17, 2012.

Following the collapse of Empire Sports Network and its parent, Adelphia, MSG also picked up rights to the Buffalo Sabres, and agreed to a 10-year contract in 2006.

In 1996, ITT Corporation (then half-owner of MSG) entered a joint-venture with Dow Jones & Company to purchase WNYC-TV from the City of New York and convert it to a hybrid sports/business news format.

Select Devils, Islanders, and Nets games from SportsChannel also aired on WBIS, temporarily relieving some of the need for multiple overflow channels.

On January 22, 2009, the NHL and MSG became involved in a contract dispute which has resulted in MSG HD and MSG+ HD's broadcasts being pulled from NHL's GameCenter Live service for viewers outside of the primary markets for the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, New York Islanders and Buffalo Sabres,[43] with games presented in standard definition and upconverted to a stretched widescreen format.

[44] Since its launch, MSG Network had blocked Verizon and AT&T from carrying MSG HD on any terms through a controversial guideline imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (known as the "terrestrial exception"), that was implemented to encourage investments in local programming, which stated that television channels that do not transmit via satellite uplink – MSG HD's programming is distributed to cable television providers through a terrestrial infrastructure using only microwave and fiber optic relays – have the authority to decide which pay television providers (cable, satellite or telco) can have access to its programming.

Because the network was once owned by Cablevision (and remains under common control by the Dolan family to this day), MSG fought attempts by the telco providers to carry it despite the significant rights fees it could collect from carriage deals with those services.

On September 22, 2011, the FCC ordered MSG to negotiate with both Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse for carriage on each system.