The Blues' pledge to place all their games on television this season is quickly melting for many viewers.

The latest to be impacted are Dish Network customers who were scheduled to be blacked out of Thursday's telecast and stand to miss 34 more of the Blues' 70 remaining telecasts on Fox Sports Midwest because of a financial dispute.

This season the club became the first major St. Louis pro team to eliminate over-the-air TV from its local package. Blues CEO Peter McLoughlin said the move was done to get all their games televised locally for the first time. But that plan is massively backfiring for some viewers, who now stand to have the fewest number of telecasts in many years.

The trail of trouble begins with the three Blues games that were scheduled at a time when Versus, the NHL's national cable carrier, has exclusive rights for its game. No local telecasts are allowed, shutting out all viewers.

Customers of DirecTV then took an additional hit because that system dropped Versus because of its own financial disagreements. DirecTV customers already have missed one Blues telecast on Versus and are in line to be without three more, including Tuesday's game against defending champion Pittsburgh.

Now fans with Dish Network are taking even a bigger jolt. When the club eliminated the 25 games carried by KPLR (Channel 11) and placed the entire package on cable/satellite outlet Fox Sports Midwest, FSM's schedule increased from 51 to 74 games. In turn, it has insisted on a rate increase to carry its signal. Deals were reached with most of the big FSM providers in the market — Charter cable, AT&T U-Verse and DirecTV. But an impasse remains with Dish, which has at least 200,000 local subscribers, according to rough estimates, and the decision was made to dump 35 telecasts. Also out for those games is Mediacom, which serves central and southwest Missouri plus parts of central Illinois.

"Fox Sports Midwest is the home of St. Louis Blues hockey, but we need our local cable and satellite providers to offer all the games to their customers,''' FSM said in a statement. "We're working hard to get this resolved as soon as possible.''

A source said the gap is wide.

"At some point, someone has to say no to the ever-escalating price of sports programming,'' Dish Network said in a statement, adding that it is "... the best value in TV today. One of the ways we achieve that is by sometimes just saying no to outrageous prices."

The Blues' McLoughlin said the matter is out of the club's hands.

"We sold our rights to Fox, and the situation with Fox and Dish is their business relationship that they're working on,'' he said.

When asked if there was any regret about dropping KPLR, he said, "Fox is a great partner and we're pleased that they're carrying 74 games. We're pleased there's going to be 55 games in HD this year and more next year. So we appreciate our partnership.''

The next affected game is Oct. 23 against Minnesota. Other FSM programming isn't impacted.

BIRDS' BOOTHS

Mike Shannon, who just completed his 38th season in the Cardinals' radio booth, said rumblings that he might cut back his broadcast schedule next season are unfounded. Shannon, who turned 70 this season, is headed toward the final year of a contract that continues to have in-season vacation time built into it. He said Thursday that no changes are planned for 2010.

"I have a contract and I plan to meet that contract,'' he said.

Meanwhile, the contract of FSM commentator Al Hrabosky — who had a well-publicized run-in with Cards manager Tony La Russa at midseason over the announcer pointing out that Cards catcher Yadier Molina was lollygagging — is up. Hrabosky, who just completed his 25th season broadcasting the Redbirds, said he doesn't consider the war of words he had with La Russa to be an issue.

"I don't even look back on it,'' Hrabosky said. "It's over and done with. You just move forward.''

FSM general manager Jack Donovan said the incident is "water over the bridge" and no announcer moves are planned.

"The past season was terrific, we had the highest ratings in the National League and we're happy with where things are,'' he said. "I don't expect any changes unless there's some surprise.''

RATINGS REPORT

The first Cards postseason series to be shown exclusively on cable/satellite suffered a 9 percent ratings dip for a comparable number of games over the team's previous playoff appearance.

This year TBS had exclusive rights to the Dodgers' sweep of the Cards, and Nielsen Media Research says the three games, on average, were seen in 18 percent of homes in the market with a TV. The figure for the first three contests of the San Diego series in 2006, which the Redbirds won in four games, was 19.8. KPLR drew a 10.7 rating; ESPN/ESPN2 was at 9.1.