No TV coverage of rearranged games.

They were on the Fuji TV CS channel - Fuji Terebi One, as are all Swallows home games.

Whereas the Pacific League teams joined forces with Pacific League Marketing to spread their games out among the various channels (The J-Sports Quartet, GAORA, and Sky A), the Central League teams hang on to their broadcast rights with an iron fist. The home games for the Giants are on their G+ channel, Yokohama home games are on NewsBird (TBS's 24 hour news channel), and Yakult, as mentioned above, host their home games on Fuji Terebi One. Chunichi and Hiroshima don't have a parent company as a broadcaster (although they do have tie ins with local broadcasters), so they appear on the varioius J-Sports channels for their home games. Finally, Hanshin has a deal with Sun TV in Osaka, which then has a deal with GAORA who broadcasts their games on CS when not broadcasting a Pa-league game (or on tape delay).

If you don't have cable or a CS dish, you're right, you won't get many games - in October or during the season. But the games are available.

I'm disappointed in Katoh-commissioner's total lack of innovation during his first year in the seat. He appeared to go from looking forward to the post with high anticipation to having a resigned "what am I doing here?" look on his face at the opening ceremonies of a Girl's Nanshiki Baseball Tournament. He needs to take the reigns and steer the owners to work together to do what's best for NPB, not continue to run their teams as little fiefdoms hording broadcast rights.

While I'm on this rampage, it was pointed out to me that YouTube user rmpp7 had his account suspended. For those who don't know, he posted a lot of NPB highlights, mainly focusing on the Tigers. Again, it's the Pacific League that is looking good, as they've put together the Pacific League Movie Channel with PL highlights on YouTube.

And to conclude my rant of the day, the BayStars have named former Dentsu-man, 68 year old Takao Kaji (加地 隆雄), as their new club president. Granted, I know absolutely nothing about him except where he was formerly employed. However, his former employer, Dentsu, is the same company that controls NPB BIS. And instead of expanding the system to make it serve NPB, all they do with it is milk the teams for money to support it (while not providing data that the teams can actually use) and the media for an ancient connectivity system. "Dentsu, the provider of technologies that time forgot." I really have my doubts that Yokohama will be moving forward any time soon.

Not sure how much the new commissioner can be faulted. Maybe it just shows how much of a puppet position it really is.

I was shocked this week as well. I complained here before about BS coverage. I love all the sports they show, but the way they cover them is really messed up. They must have shown 3 or 4 Fighters game this week because they wanted to show the PL clinching game, even though it's been a foregone conclusion. I thought the CL race for 3rd was far more compelling, but also couldn't find the Tigers anywhere on my TV this past week, even living in Kyoto. As Michael noted, unless you have satellite TV, you have limited options.
Another problem with BS is they often change their schedule on short notice. I was excited that they were showing replays of some MLB playoff games in prime time this weekend, but instead tonight they switched to NFL Monday football. Yes, Monday night as in a game that was played 5 days ago!
Anyway, beggars can't be choosers. I remember my first year in Japan when I rushed out to buy snacks because I saw the MLB All-Star game was on TV, but it was over by the time I got back because they were only broadcasting Nomo's innings!

I had the good fortune (or so I thought, poor Torakichi me) of coming to Osaka towards the end of September, staying with friends who get many cable stations. Imagine my butsu-butsu when I could not see those crucial, heartbreaking Tigers-Swallows games on October 8-9. Managed to listen to most of them on NHK radio -- excellent workout for your Japanese listening skills, btw -- but even those were interrupted by long news breaks. What gives? It's a lousy system. This is one aspect of MLB that I wish NPB would copy: just make the games available on internet for a yearly subscription price.

Speaking of which, since those MLB playoff games are available on the internet anyway (I believe it's US$19.95 for a post-season package), why indeed are they delay-broadcast on Japanese cable TV during the time of live NPB games? Could have televised them AFTER the Tigers-Swallows events; and I imagine that was a conflict for Buffs-Lions-Fighters etc. fans too. It doesn't make much sense to me either as a fan, or in terms of audience and advertising $/¥.