ravens/cin not on TV tonight?
- Thread starter MadJack
- Start date
long but answer questions as to WHY?
long but answer questions as to WHY?
I have direct TV but dont pay anything for nfl network, (ITS FREE to direct tv customers), it has nothing to do with NFL sunday ticket. Some cable companies wont carry it, thats what the NFL is trying to push.
READ THIS
NEW YORK - The NFL will air the first of eight live pro football games on its own network on Thanksgiving. But they won't be available to many viewers across the country because the league hasn't reached carriage agreements with several major cable operators.
The eight games ? beginning with Thursday's matchup of the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs ? will be available on local broadcasters, satellite TV and a number of other cable systems that do carry the NFL Network. But that totals only about 40 million of the nation's 111.4 million households with TVs.
Most notable among the cable companies that haven't reached deals with the National Football League are No. 2 operator Time Warner Cable, which is a unit of the media conglomerate Time Warner Inc.; Cablevision Systems Corp., a New York-area provider; and Charter Communications Inc. Time Warner, for its part, says it's highly unlikely a deal will be reached in time for the first game.
Comcast Corp., the largest cable company in the country, has carried the network for two years, but as part of a premium-tier sports package ordered by only about 7 million of its 24 million subscribers. Time Warner says it's balking at a demand from NFL that the network be carried on the most widely available basic service lineup.
The issue is cost. Spokesman Mark Harrad says Time Warner would have to pay $140 million a year to provide the channel to all 13.5 million of its subscribers in 33 states, placing it in the top five most expensive cable networks. He said the company would prefer to carry the network as part of a premium service ? not at the rate of 70 cents per customer per month the network is reportedly seeking.
"If we put all expensive sports programming on the standard tier of service, that would increase our rates to all of our customers, even those who didn't particularly care about football or these games," said Harrad.
NFL Network spokesman Seth Palansky counters that a number of other cable companies as well as the two main satellite providers are "happily" carrying the network, which is jointly owned by the league's 32 team owners.
"It's the most valuable programming a cable company can offer, and a cable company not carrying live NFL games is like a grocery store not carrying milk," Palansky said.
The NFL already makes a bundle from broadcasting agreements, money that is shared equally by all team owners. General Electric Co.'s NBC started broadcasting Sunday night games this year under a six-year, $600 million deal with the league, while Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN is paying $1.1 billion for Monday night football over eight years. Last year the NFL reached six-year, $8 billion extensions with Fox and CBS for Sunday afternoon games.
NFL team owners are betting their own network will offer other opportunities for building revenue in the future, including streaming programming over the Internet, through Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes and cell phones, Palansky said.
Palansky declined to release financial data for the network, including its revenues and losses to date, but the NFL said at the time of its launch three years ago that it expected to have $100 million in startup costs.
About two-thirds of the NFL network's 40 million households come from satellite TV subscribers who get either the Dish network from EchoStar Communications Corp. or DirecTV from The DirecTV Group Inc. By contrast, Disney's ESPN network is available in 92 million homes.
Until now, however, the network hasn't carried any NFL games live. Instead, it ran other football-related programming like news, interviews, game highlights and replays, plus games from NFL Europe.
The NFL is hoping that the appeal of the live games, which are scheduled for Thursdays and Saturdays, will help expand the network's audience. Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth will be the game announcers.
John Mansell, senior analyst at Kagan Research, a media research and analysis firm, says the dispute between the NFL and the cable companies is about "positioning, and money."
"Cable operators love the NFL, but they want to carry it on a digital tier, where they can use it as a destination for sports programming," Mansell said. "If it's going to be expensive, they want to receive compensation for it" from customers who pay premium fees.
The cable companies are in a tough spot on this dispute. If hard-core fans can't see the games they want, the complaints could start pouring in ? something Time Warner says hasn't happened yet. On the other hand, no one's going to like it if the cable companies pass along the costs by raising rates.
Comcast, meanwhile, is being sued by the NFL Network after trying to switch over newly acquired cable systems to the arrangement already in place for existing subscribers.
Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said in a statement that the NFL is trying to "force cable companies to charge many consumers for programming they don't want. Sports programming fees are out of control in general and the NFL programming is very expensive."
Harrad of Time Warner says that cable companies may have already lost the most die-hard NFL fans years ago anyway when the NFL created a major package of games called NFL Sunday Ticket and sold it exclusively to DirecTV, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
The full package costs $249 per year for access to up to 14 out-of-market regular season games every Sunday. In November of 2004, DirecTV announced a five-year, $3.5 billion agreement with the NFL to extend and expand their exclusive rights to carry NFL Sunday Ticket through the 2010 season.
In the end, it remains to be seen whether either side will blink. Time Warner says it doesn't expect a resolution prior to the first game. Meantime, the NFL Network's Web site is encouraging fans to request their cable operators carry the network.
Sports programmers and cable operators have clashed before, industry analysts note, as the costs for carrying sports continues to climb. Mansell notes that compromises are usually reached, however, and if there is a dispute, it's unusual for it to last beyond one year.
In the meantime, says Howard Horowitz of Horowitz Associates Inc., a market research and consulting firm: "the consumer will usually be asked by each side to blame the other side."
THIS TELLS YOU WHAT CABLE COMPANIES ARENT PLAYING NICE:
NFL Network Is Still Plugging Holes
Several Major Cablers Still Haven?t Signed for Eight-Game Package
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By R. Thomas Umstead 11/20/2006Digg This | add to Del.icio.us |
Sidebars:
Might NFL Network Be Offsides On Antitrust?
Pigskin fans in markets served by Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems, Insight Communications and Charter Communications will most likely have to skip Thanksgiving dessert and head to a neighborhood watering hole if they want to watch the Denver Broncos against the Kansas City Chiefs on the NFL Network.
The National Football League?s television network and the four cable operators dug their cleats in the turf last week over distribution fees for the channel and its package of eight primetime games on Thursday and Saturday nights. The league-owned network is asking for a monthly license fee of 70 cents a subscriber for its service, up from 20 cents before the eight games became part of its roster.
Last January, Comcast, according to executives familiar with the negotiations, bid $2.4 billion over six seasons and offered an equity stake in the network now known as Versus for the package, before the league awarded the rights to its in-house channel.
Since that point, the NFL Network has been fighting to get wide, basic distribution before its season, in effect, kicks off on Thanksgiving Day.
But operators have been blocking that bid. As of press time last Friday ? just five days before the NFL Network?s first live game ? here?s a scorecard of the holes that opened up in the service?s distribution lineup:
Time Warner Cable: Will not carry the first game. Executive vice president of programming Fred Dressler said last Wednesday at the SportsBusiness Journal Sports Media & Technology summit in New York that it?s ?100%? assured that the cable operator will not come to terms with the network before its primetime package kicks off on Nov. 23. Time Warner has steadfastly held the line and wants to offer the NFL Network on its low-penetrated sports tier, while the NFL Network continues to seeking analog basic distribution.
?It comes down to whether consumers will be allowed to pay for it discretely or whether it will be bundled into basic,? he added.
Cox Communications: Will carry games, but not on the basic tier. Senior vice president Bob Wilson, who also spoke at the conference, confirmed that the operator will offer NFL Network and its live games on its sports and information tier. He said that tier has about 30% penetration across all Cox subscribers and 60% penetration among Cox digital-cable homes.
Wilson would not reveal specifics about the agreement, but executives involved in NFL Network-cable operator negotiations said Cox and other distributors of the live game package are paying a surcharge for the games that?s more than double the approximately 20-cent license fee for the rest of the network?s programming.
Charter Communications: Off-air. The first cable operator to sign up with and carry the NFL Network in 2004 is in litigation with the service over the terms of that initial carriage deal. The network pulled its signal from Charter in December 2005 and filed a breach of contract suit against the operator in New York Supreme Court over contract language regarding distribution.
Executives at Charter ? whose chairman, Paul Allen, owns the defending National Football Conference champion Seattle Seahawks ? would only confirm that it is engaged in litigation with the network and plans to file a counterclaim. In August, the parties met with a mediator but were unsuccessful in efforts to work out their differences, according to Charter.
Insight Communications: Will not carry the games. Insight, which carries the NFL Network on its digital basic tier, has decided not to pay the additional surcharge to carry the game package. Representatives from Insight did not return phone calls by press time.
Cablevision Systems: Not likely to carry the first game. The operator doesn?t have a deal with the NFL Network and declined to comment on the matter.
Comcast: Will carry the eight games on its Digital Plus tier and sports tier in systems that already have the NFL Network, according to a spokeswoman. That does not include the recently acquired Adelphia and Time Warner Cable systems it picked up earlier this year.
Last week, though, the NFL disclosed that it filed suit in October in a New York State court to block Comcast from distributing NFL Network exclusively on a sports tier the nation?s largest cable operator plans to launch sometime in 2007. The disclosure about the suit, which remains sealed, came during a hearing in Washington, D.C., focusing on the distribution of its ?NFL Sunday Ticket? out-of-market game package.
NFL Network president Steve Bornstein said during a network conference call last week that he was ?not optimistic? that deals with Time Warner and other recalcitrant operators would be completed by Thanksgiving. He said the network will distribute the games to a little over 40 million subscribers.
?I?m always looking at the glass as half-full,? Bornstein said, adding that the network has 160 other cable distributors currently on board. ?I believe I am offering a real good value to cable distributors ? we are just hopeful that we can get 100% [distribution].?
long but answer questions as to WHY?
I have direct TV but dont pay anything for nfl network, (ITS FREE to direct tv customers), it has nothing to do with NFL sunday ticket. Some cable companies wont carry it, thats what the NFL is trying to push.
READ THIS
NEW YORK - The NFL will air the first of eight live pro football games on its own network on Thanksgiving. But they won't be available to many viewers across the country because the league hasn't reached carriage agreements with several major cable operators.
The eight games ? beginning with Thursday's matchup of the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs ? will be available on local broadcasters, satellite TV and a number of other cable systems that do carry the NFL Network. But that totals only about 40 million of the nation's 111.4 million households with TVs.
Most notable among the cable companies that haven't reached deals with the National Football League are No. 2 operator Time Warner Cable, which is a unit of the media conglomerate Time Warner Inc.; Cablevision Systems Corp., a New York-area provider; and Charter Communications Inc. Time Warner, for its part, says it's highly unlikely a deal will be reached in time for the first game.
Comcast Corp., the largest cable company in the country, has carried the network for two years, but as part of a premium-tier sports package ordered by only about 7 million of its 24 million subscribers. Time Warner says it's balking at a demand from NFL that the network be carried on the most widely available basic service lineup.
The issue is cost. Spokesman Mark Harrad says Time Warner would have to pay $140 million a year to provide the channel to all 13.5 million of its subscribers in 33 states, placing it in the top five most expensive cable networks. He said the company would prefer to carry the network as part of a premium service ? not at the rate of 70 cents per customer per month the network is reportedly seeking.
"If we put all expensive sports programming on the standard tier of service, that would increase our rates to all of our customers, even those who didn't particularly care about football or these games," said Harrad.
NFL Network spokesman Seth Palansky counters that a number of other cable companies as well as the two main satellite providers are "happily" carrying the network, which is jointly owned by the league's 32 team owners.
"It's the most valuable programming a cable company can offer, and a cable company not carrying live NFL games is like a grocery store not carrying milk," Palansky said.
The NFL already makes a bundle from broadcasting agreements, money that is shared equally by all team owners. General Electric Co.'s NBC started broadcasting Sunday night games this year under a six-year, $600 million deal with the league, while Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN is paying $1.1 billion for Monday night football over eight years. Last year the NFL reached six-year, $8 billion extensions with Fox and CBS for Sunday afternoon games.
NFL team owners are betting their own network will offer other opportunities for building revenue in the future, including streaming programming over the Internet, through Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes and cell phones, Palansky said.
Palansky declined to release financial data for the network, including its revenues and losses to date, but the NFL said at the time of its launch three years ago that it expected to have $100 million in startup costs.
About two-thirds of the NFL network's 40 million households come from satellite TV subscribers who get either the Dish network from EchoStar Communications Corp. or DirecTV from The DirecTV Group Inc. By contrast, Disney's ESPN network is available in 92 million homes.
Until now, however, the network hasn't carried any NFL games live. Instead, it ran other football-related programming like news, interviews, game highlights and replays, plus games from NFL Europe.
The NFL is hoping that the appeal of the live games, which are scheduled for Thursdays and Saturdays, will help expand the network's audience. Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth will be the game announcers.
John Mansell, senior analyst at Kagan Research, a media research and analysis firm, says the dispute between the NFL and the cable companies is about "positioning, and money."
"Cable operators love the NFL, but they want to carry it on a digital tier, where they can use it as a destination for sports programming," Mansell said. "If it's going to be expensive, they want to receive compensation for it" from customers who pay premium fees.
The cable companies are in a tough spot on this dispute. If hard-core fans can't see the games they want, the complaints could start pouring in ? something Time Warner says hasn't happened yet. On the other hand, no one's going to like it if the cable companies pass along the costs by raising rates.
Comcast, meanwhile, is being sued by the NFL Network after trying to switch over newly acquired cable systems to the arrangement already in place for existing subscribers.
Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said in a statement that the NFL is trying to "force cable companies to charge many consumers for programming they don't want. Sports programming fees are out of control in general and the NFL programming is very expensive."
Harrad of Time Warner says that cable companies may have already lost the most die-hard NFL fans years ago anyway when the NFL created a major package of games called NFL Sunday Ticket and sold it exclusively to DirecTV, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
The full package costs $249 per year for access to up to 14 out-of-market regular season games every Sunday. In November of 2004, DirecTV announced a five-year, $3.5 billion agreement with the NFL to extend and expand their exclusive rights to carry NFL Sunday Ticket through the 2010 season.
In the end, it remains to be seen whether either side will blink. Time Warner says it doesn't expect a resolution prior to the first game. Meantime, the NFL Network's Web site is encouraging fans to request their cable operators carry the network.
Sports programmers and cable operators have clashed before, industry analysts note, as the costs for carrying sports continues to climb. Mansell notes that compromises are usually reached, however, and if there is a dispute, it's unusual for it to last beyond one year.
In the meantime, says Howard Horowitz of Horowitz Associates Inc., a market research and consulting firm: "the consumer will usually be asked by each side to blame the other side."
THIS TELLS YOU WHAT CABLE COMPANIES ARENT PLAYING NICE:
NFL Network Is Still Plugging Holes
Several Major Cablers Still Haven?t Signed for Eight-Game Package
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By R. Thomas Umstead 11/20/2006Digg This | add to Del.icio.us |
Sidebars:
Might NFL Network Be Offsides On Antitrust?
Pigskin fans in markets served by Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems, Insight Communications and Charter Communications will most likely have to skip Thanksgiving dessert and head to a neighborhood watering hole if they want to watch the Denver Broncos against the Kansas City Chiefs on the NFL Network.
The National Football League?s television network and the four cable operators dug their cleats in the turf last week over distribution fees for the channel and its package of eight primetime games on Thursday and Saturday nights. The league-owned network is asking for a monthly license fee of 70 cents a subscriber for its service, up from 20 cents before the eight games became part of its roster.
Last January, Comcast, according to executives familiar with the negotiations, bid $2.4 billion over six seasons and offered an equity stake in the network now known as Versus for the package, before the league awarded the rights to its in-house channel.
Since that point, the NFL Network has been fighting to get wide, basic distribution before its season, in effect, kicks off on Thanksgiving Day.
But operators have been blocking that bid. As of press time last Friday ? just five days before the NFL Network?s first live game ? here?s a scorecard of the holes that opened up in the service?s distribution lineup:
Time Warner Cable: Will not carry the first game. Executive vice president of programming Fred Dressler said last Wednesday at the SportsBusiness Journal Sports Media & Technology summit in New York that it?s ?100%? assured that the cable operator will not come to terms with the network before its primetime package kicks off on Nov. 23. Time Warner has steadfastly held the line and wants to offer the NFL Network on its low-penetrated sports tier, while the NFL Network continues to seeking analog basic distribution.
?It comes down to whether consumers will be allowed to pay for it discretely or whether it will be bundled into basic,? he added.
Cox Communications: Will carry games, but not on the basic tier. Senior vice president Bob Wilson, who also spoke at the conference, confirmed that the operator will offer NFL Network and its live games on its sports and information tier. He said that tier has about 30% penetration across all Cox subscribers and 60% penetration among Cox digital-cable homes.
Wilson would not reveal specifics about the agreement, but executives involved in NFL Network-cable operator negotiations said Cox and other distributors of the live game package are paying a surcharge for the games that?s more than double the approximately 20-cent license fee for the rest of the network?s programming.
Charter Communications: Off-air. The first cable operator to sign up with and carry the NFL Network in 2004 is in litigation with the service over the terms of that initial carriage deal. The network pulled its signal from Charter in December 2005 and filed a breach of contract suit against the operator in New York Supreme Court over contract language regarding distribution.
Executives at Charter ? whose chairman, Paul Allen, owns the defending National Football Conference champion Seattle Seahawks ? would only confirm that it is engaged in litigation with the network and plans to file a counterclaim. In August, the parties met with a mediator but were unsuccessful in efforts to work out their differences, according to Charter.
Insight Communications: Will not carry the games. Insight, which carries the NFL Network on its digital basic tier, has decided not to pay the additional surcharge to carry the game package. Representatives from Insight did not return phone calls by press time.
Cablevision Systems: Not likely to carry the first game. The operator doesn?t have a deal with the NFL Network and declined to comment on the matter.
Comcast: Will carry the eight games on its Digital Plus tier and sports tier in systems that already have the NFL Network, according to a spokeswoman. That does not include the recently acquired Adelphia and Time Warner Cable systems it picked up earlier this year.
Last week, though, the NFL disclosed that it filed suit in October in a New York State court to block Comcast from distributing NFL Network exclusively on a sports tier the nation?s largest cable operator plans to launch sometime in 2007. The disclosure about the suit, which remains sealed, came during a hearing in Washington, D.C., focusing on the distribution of its ?NFL Sunday Ticket? out-of-market game package.
NFL Network president Steve Bornstein said during a network conference call last week that he was ?not optimistic? that deals with Time Warner and other recalcitrant operators would be completed by Thanksgiving. He said the network will distribute the games to a little over 40 million subscribers.
?I?m always looking at the glass as half-full,? Bornstein said, adding that the network has 160 other cable distributors currently on board. ?I believe I am offering a real good value to cable distributors ? we are just hopeful that we can get 100% [distribution].?
Insight must have caved in because one week after not having their first game, the Ravens game was on this past Thursday. Jack, if the Ravens are on the NFLN anymore this year, come on up to Greenfield. Agent lives two blocks from me and we can watch it at my place. I'll order up some wings and the Bud is on me.
