TIME'S UP FOR TIME WARNER CABLE SERVICE.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

Who's right? Who's wrong?

At this point, who cares.

The folks at Time Warner Cable have done a fabulous job of digging themselves into a pit. But no matter how many times they prop up a nervous- looking general manager on camera to explain why there won't be any more Dodgers and Angels games on Fox Sports Net's two cable channels for the rest of the season, we're through watching them shovel.

From here on, Time Warner Cable deserves the villain label. And now it's gonna pay, not us.

First, we strongly suggest you carefully unplug the cable going into your TV set. Next, return that box, if you have one, to its rightful owner.

Finally, take that $300 tax rebate from the government, call DirecTV and request an installer for this afternoon. Dodgers and Angels games will magically return.

Believe it or not, we are allowed, even encouraged, to make these kind of decisions in life. Although regular payments to your cable operator might seem to be just another necessary utility evil, there are alternatives once thought to be too expensive or cause too much angst to even consider.

But for the 350,000-plus subscribers of Time Warner throughout Southern California, it shouldn't be a tough choice.

Don't just wish for a dish. Go get it. We'll wait.

Honestly, we've tried to consider both sides of this egotistical skirmish that seems to take place each year but somehow gets resolved before it gets too ridiculous. But with multibillion-dollar corporations on either side, we aren't comfortable cozying up with either.

News Corp., which owns the Fox Entertainment Group, which runs both Fox Sports Net cable channels and the Dodgers, reported assets of $39 billion in the first quarter of the year with $14 billion in revenue. This, despite taking losses with the sports cable channels because of rising programming costs and rights fees in a soft advertising market.

AOL Time Warner, which owns Time Warner Cable, reported total revenue of $9.2 billion for the second quarter, led by a 10 percent growth in subscription revenues - precisely, people buying cable.

So, what was your income the last three months? Precisely.

Fox actually spent $1 million for an advertising campaign against Time Warner during the last few months.

And on background, they've been able to express such hypocritical occurrences as: If Time Warner Cable customers paid an average of $40 a month, but got the extra Dodgers and Angels games last year, and their bill went up this year but they aren't getting the extra games, where's the rebate?

When you consider that every other cable system in Southern California has gone along with this Dodgers-Angels financial arrangement, the fog should start to lift.

When Fox and the Dodgers and Angels decided a few years back to expand the current number of televised games per season, Fox had to add the surcharge because contracts had already been in effect. And everyone, maybe begrudgingly at first, realized it was beneficial to air the games because it's what the subscribers would want. It could be made up in advertising without having to make a bump with monthly fees to set off another public relations mousetrap.

This time, though, someone claiming to have intelligence in the Time Warner Cable hierarchy thought it would be prudent to stop making these payments.

Because they couldn't afford it? Hardly. Because there's some bad blood with Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch? Maybe.

Just because they could, really. So they made that decision, here, in Houston and in suburban Pittsburgh.

But they didn't do it in New York, where Time Warner is in more than a million cable homes. Not because folks there like the Yankees and Mets any less. It's just that causing a riot in New York couldn't be very prudent.

So N.Y. wins. L.A. loses.

Even if you're one of the 28,000 who've so far called 866-FOX-2001 to find out the situation - and 4,000 phoned Wednesday when the Angels were caught in the latest dragnet - there doesn't seem to be many options for us pawns stuck in the middle.

You could boycott News Corp's empire. But that would include the Dodgers. Kind of defeats the purpose in this case. And it's not like you were going to go see ``Planet of the Apes'' anyway.

A boycott of AOL Time Warner properties would mean not watching ``The Sopranos'' on HBO, ``Headline News'' on CNN, Chip Carey on TBS or, gulp, everything on the WB. That means not going to new Warner Brothers movies such as ``A.I.'' and ``Cats & Dogs.'' Or turning off Warner-produced TV shows such as ``The West Wing'' or ``ER.'' Or tuning out Warner recording artists such as Sugar Ray. Or stop buying Time Inc. publications like Sports Illustrated.

Or even cancelling your America Online account.

If that's too much at one time, stick to the elementary procedure of linking up with DirecTV - ironically, soon to be bought out by Murdoch as an addition to the Fox family.

If a customer's value is annually worth more than $5,000 to a cable system - and that's a number thrown out recently during FCC hearings on Comcast's request to buy AT&T cable - then Time Warner Cable would lose in excess of $50,000 if only 10 people dropped the service and went with a competitor.

That would be enough to start a ripple. A tidal wave can't be far off.

The elderly viewers who call us at the office to find out why we list Dodgers and Angels games in the TV listings but they can't find them seem to be most affected by this. Trying to simplify the situation for this particular demographic is more frustrating on both ends. And asking them to do something like drop cable for a dish seems rather mean. We sympathize.

All we can do is tell everyone there are 28 games left on Fox Sports Net 2's schedule of Dodgers games as the season heads toward the playoff run over the last nine weeks. The last 10 games of the Dodgers' final homestand are on FSN2 - three against San Diego, four against Arizona and three against San Francisco. One of the last three games of a season-ending weekend road trip in Arizona is also on FSN2's schedule.

So, you see, there's time. It's just that time has run out on Time Warner.