Edgewood vs. Talawanda
Middletown vs. Lakota West
Area H.S. football: Week 8
TV/MEDIA INSIDER
ESPNU remains a channel few can see
Friday, December 22, 2006
About a month ago, Comcast and the Walt Disney Company announced a long-term agreement for the cable company to broadcast Disney's networks.
Disney owns ABC and ESPN, so this was no small deal.
Extras
Conspicuously absent in the deal was an outlet for ESPNU, the network that carried this season's Ohio State-Indiana football game and will carry a number of basketball games this winter — effectively shutting out most fans.
Frankly, I was going to make the gigantic leap of faith that if Comcast — the country's largest cable company — could come to terms with ESPN over ESPNU, then our Time Warner could, too ... eventually. In other words, I was going to offer a ray of hope during a season of good cheer and all that.
Alas, included in the deal are ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNEWS, ESPN HD and ESPN Deportes, but no ESPNU.
"We don't talk about our negotiations," a spokesman for Comcast said.
Another break for those satellite companies that do carry ESPNU and the bars and restaurants that subscribe.
Rutgers on NFL Network
The recent announcement that Time Warner offered to carry a week (Dec. 24-30) of the NFL Network for free was made to New York and New Jersey subscribers only.
Why that week? Well, it turns out the Dec. 28 Texas Bowl, featuring Rutgers and Kansas State, is owned by the NFL Network, and if all those new-found Rutgers fans subscribed to cable, they wouldn't be able to see the game.
The NFL Network is having a problem convincing cable companies that their asking price to broadcast the network isn't too high.
It isn't just Dayton that doesn't have access to the NFL Network on cable. Neither Time Warner nor Cablevision Systems Corp. carry it in New York, either. Cablevision has about 3.1 million subscribers in that market to Time Warner's 1.4 million.
Originally, the NFL Network offered a weeklong free preview, but Time Warner only wanted to offer its customers the Texas Bowl. If the network is going to give away its product, it might as well make it a worthwhile time period so it can show off all its work.
The NFL Network also has rights to the Dec. 29 Insight Bowl in Tempe, Ariz., featuring Texas Tech and Minnesota.
You just can't ask customers to pay too much for that game.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2157 or mkatz@DaytonDailyNews.com.
