Jackson1011 Wrote:omnicarrier Wrote:USFMike Wrote:"When the cable company decides to send 70 channels - the food channel, and the dog channel and the bike channel and the jewelry channel - into your home, (we believe) that the Big Ten Network deserves to be in that grouping," Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said. "Everything else is pretty negotiable."
the big ten commissioner sounds like 5 year old throwing a tantrum, i think they grossly overestimate the value of their product. i have confidence the cable companies will stand pat, they know the snowball effect that will happen if the big ten gets what they want.
BTN in jeopardy
Again, I happen to agree with Delany on this issue. But I'm not heartbroken that the BTN is having trouble launching. 
It hopefully will give the BEast more time to develop.
Cheers,
Neil
-- Actually there is precident to the cable companies stance. The NFL Network, the future MLB network, ESPNU, CSTV etc are specialty channels. The cold truth is more people want to watch the some chef on the food channel then a OSU/Minnesota women's volley ball game (which is what a lot of the BTN programming will be)
It will be interesting to see what if the Big 10 can be pursuaded to give its new network some big games. To me, that is thid idea's number one flaw is, its showing games no one wants to watch
Jackson
And for me, that's the simplistic view. There are plenty of fine Big Ten football games that did not make ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 last year. I know. I watched some of them on GamePlan.
And while I consider watching Big Ten basketball this country's version of Chinese water torture, I know that there were plenty of great Big East basketball games that I could only get to watch because of Full Court.
By the way, NFL Network, ESPNU, and a few of those other stations are (or soon will be) off the sports tier for some areas mainly because fans pressured for it.
Somehow I don't think if the Food Channel left basic cable there'd be pressure to put it back on basic. But, that's just how I see it.
The main stumbling block for CSTV was actual national content. Let's face it, they don't have the quality 'name-brand' conferences. The main stumbling block for ESPNU has been that subscribers are already paying an arm and a leg for the other ESPN channels, which is filled up with a lot of crap these days. But still, some cable companies in some areas have capitulated in its second year and it will be on basic cable in some areas.
The main problems with the NFL Network is price and that the product is only available for one day a week for four months out of the year.
As for the channels like Jewelry TV and Food Channel, the reason why they are on is solely because of price - usually between $.10 and $.20 per month. If the BTN was willing to settle for twenty cents a month, perhaps they probably wouldn't be facing this much resistance?
On the other hand, the cable companies might still have resisted because 6 conferences at twenty cents a month would be just under $15 a year annually per subscriber. And that would still total over $1 billion annually in additional fees for subscribers.
In the end, I truly believe the BTN will prove to be a success and that within a decade or two all of a conference's games will only be available through such networks. It basically cuts out the middle man (ESPN) while increasing revenue on an annual basis (since TV households with digital subscriptions increase every year), rather than have the major conferences have to go groveling to a middle man (ESPN) that doesn't treat their product with the respect it deserves.
Cheers,
Neil
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Would SU/Rutgers be making a mistake by joining Big Televen?
