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Clock is ticking for Big Ten deal
By George M. Thomas
Beacon Journal sportswriter
Published on Friday, Jun 27, 2008
Normally I don't like anyone interrupting a vacation, but when the Big Ten Network and Comcast announced their deal last week, more than a few readers e-mailed with questions.
My children will forever remember my Treo going crazy with e-mail notifications as we cruised through Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney World.
The gist of them all: Comcast customers now have it. When do we get it?
Sorry, folks, I'm no psychic, but speaking from a common-sense perspective. Time Warner's bluff has now been called.
Hours after announcing its deal with Comcast, BTN sent out a graphic showing the channel's penetration in several Big Ten states. Smack in the middle was Ohio, painted in a scarlet so deep that it would shock Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter.
None of the Buckeye State's neighbors to the north, east and west had penetration of less than 79 percent. Ohio? Forty. Want to guess the dominant cable company here? Time Warner, it is.
There is good news to report. One source at Time Warner said the two sides are talking. Before the Comcast deal, the two were like a married couple sleeping in separate bedrooms. They knew the other existed but said nothing.
''The two good things are there is a Comcast deal which should imply that a deal can be done [with Time Warner],'' Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman said. ''Both sides are looking to get a deal done.''
Both sides might be looking to get things done, but from this corner, it looks like the pressure is on Time Warner.
When sports fans in surrounding states can get the channel in substantial numbers and Ohio State fans cannot because the dominant player in video service adopts a hard line toward new programming, something has to give, or in this case, someone has to blink.
It looks as if there has been some eyelash batting on both sides. ''The tone is a lot better now that Comcast has a deal,'' a Time Warner source said.
Silverman responded diplomatically when asked about that. He views the last year of bickering in the media, the competing full-page newspaper ads and complaints from potential fans for almost the past year as wasted time and energy.
And to the Big Ten Network's credit, when it initially came on the scene, it claimed it was flexible with respect to how the station launched, asking that it begin its life in the cable lineup on the expanded basic level.
With Comcast, that is where it will begin, but after next year's Big Ten basketball season, the company reserves the right to move it to the digital level provided that most of its customers do not require an upgrade to their equipment.
The key is the majority has to get the channel at the lower level.
That's a gamble. A shrewd bet, but one nonetheless. Call it a trial run to gauge the network's popularity in markets. If fans flock to the channel in droves — which they likely will, given that college sports fans are some of the most loyal — cable companies would be crazy to move it and risk incurring the wrath of subscribers, many of whom have zero tolerance for what they perceive to be the games that providers continue to play.
So when will Buckeyes fans have an idea whether they'll be watching those few games that make it on the Big Ten Network? Like this time last year, the clock is ticking for the parties to come to a deal.
For many football fans, summer is an annoyance that crops up before the first kickoff.
Silverman said significant progress has to be made in the next month for everything to be in place.
Unlike last year, there's a blueprint for Time Warner to follow in negotiations. For the first time, it looks as if it's a matter of when, not if.
George M. Thomas can be reached at sportswriterabj@sbcglobal.net Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/sportsblitz/.
Normally I don't like anyone interrupting a vacation, but when the Big Ten Network and Comcast announced their deal last week, more than a few readers e-mailed with questions.
Get the full article here.
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