By all accounts, the BTN is close to announcing a carriage agreement with Comcast.
Today, WCMH in Columbus, Ohio announced that the BTN and Time Warner were set to resume negotiations. This is significant in that Time Warner has negotiated with the BTN for several months and Time Warner has also drawn the hardest line against sports programming. It is too early to determine whether these negotiations will result in anything but at least the ice has thawed. If the BTN is successful in reaching agreements with Comcast and Time Warner, the other two Midwest holdouts (Charter and Mediacom) are virtually certain to follow.
The end result is that the BTN would have essentially full expanded carriage in the eight state Big Ten region (sans Philadelphia) and broad carriage on a variety of tiers in the outer markets. I am not certain what the total household penetration would be, but my guess is that it would be 40-50 million, putting it in more households than the NFL Network, NBA TV, ESPNU or CBS College Sports.
Time Warner Ramping Up Negotiations With Big Ten Network - News - nbc4i.com -
Today, WCMH in Columbus, Ohio announced that the BTN and Time Warner were set to resume negotiations. This is significant in that Time Warner has negotiated with the BTN for several months and Time Warner has also drawn the hardest line against sports programming. It is too early to determine whether these negotiations will result in anything but at least the ice has thawed. If the BTN is successful in reaching agreements with Comcast and Time Warner, the other two Midwest holdouts (Charter and Mediacom) are virtually certain to follow.
The end result is that the BTN would have essentially full expanded carriage in the eight state Big Ten region (sans Philadelphia) and broad carriage on a variety of tiers in the outer markets. I am not certain what the total household penetration would be, but my guess is that it would be 40-50 million, putting it in more households than the NFL Network, NBA TV, ESPNU or CBS College Sports.
Time Warner Ramping Up Negotiations With Big Ten Network - News - nbc4i.com -
