Penn State president Graham Spanier and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany took the Big Ten Network show on the road yesterday making stops at the State House and The Patriot-News' editorial board to plug their channel. Each emphasized that the channel was developed not for profit but to benefit the league's non-revenue sports. Both refuse to budge on their basic cable or nothing stance. With a launch schedule in August the clock is ticking and things don't look good for Penn State fans with cable. Two non-marquee games against Indiana and Temple are destined to be heading to the BTN and of course certain home games will probably end up there as well.
Atlantic Broadband, Blair County's largest cable TV provider, has already pulled the plug and isn't negotiating. David Dane, vice president of operations for Atlantic Broadband, doesn't think the BTN is a basic service. "Frankly, we don't think that's appropriate," he said, "To me it doesn't sound like a basic cable service." Dane said "it's quite possible" there could be negotiations in the near future, but they won't occur in time for Atlantic Broadband to have the new network in place for Penn State's games in early September.
Spanier appears to be hanging around with Delany too much because he's getting as delusional as the Big Ten boss. When asked about the cost of the BTN to cable subscribers (the BTN would be one of the highest costing channels) Spanier said: "We're not demanding of cable companies that they raise their rates. That's their decision. Some of them could lower their rates if they traded us for something they have now that costs them more." Yeah, that list would include… ESPN. *sound of crickets chirping* That's not happening Graham.
The BTN isn't helping its case by setting some silly goals. The Network has made several pledges, including a ban on advertising for alcoholic drinks. It's also agreed to devote, within three years, equal time to men's and women's athletics, and to carry some academic programs. In creating a channel that reflects "Big Ten values," Delany said, the conference probably "left some money on the table."
I'm all for diversity but devoting equal time is probably going to be a killer. With all due respect for the women that read my blog, the majority of sports nuts are men and the most popular sports are men's sports. Before I get hate mail, I'm not pigeonholing female sports, it's just an economic fact: men's sports bring more viewers and thereby more TV revenue. Devoting any meaningful time to non-revenue (read: unpopular) sports isn't exactly a good way to make money. I'm no marketing genius but showing sports that will only muster a handful of viewers isn't exactly a good business model.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
Don't hate on women's volleyball, thats fun to watch for everyone man.
Just stating fact, it's not my personal opinion I love Women's Volleyball and softball.
Delany made some strong points yesterday. Everyone pays for channels they never watch. Comcast could easily move a channel like the golf channel to digital cable and replace it with the Big Ten Network with no cost increase to basic cable subscribers. I think a lot of current subscribers would be in favor of that type of agreement.
http://www.bigtennetwork.com/
Also, women's gymnastics. They're quite flexible
they probably won't move the golf channel, which is a very niche channel, because Comcast is an owner of it. All of their regional sports networks are on basic cable, but they won't allow other companies to add to the basic
galen: I think it was the NYT article on the spat that had a chart comparing the $1.10 the big10 is asking for to other regional sports networks and the otehrs were all much more expensive (not positive on that though). And as bullseye pointed out the are way more obscure channels the cable companies force on everyone, if comcast REALLY didn't want to make anyone pay for channels they don't want, every channel would be a buy/no buy option. Comcast are just being dicks hoping the big10 will panic and cave. They won't and Comcast will will either negotiate to put the network on basic or see their customers dump them for DirectTV or another cable carrier that will carry BTN.
Yeah, I'm not sure which article it was but basically the BTN will be one of the highest priced channels. This whole thing just has me miffed, it may be the final straw for me to move to Dish. I've been wanting to move to dish for long time because it's much cheaper then cable in my area. But I think both sides share the blame in this one.
Post a Comment