Insight and the Big10 Network
General August 16th, 2007
www.insight-com.com/contact.asp?
www.insight-com.com/6571.htm
To our Big Ten fans:
Dear customer,
Like you, we at Insight are big college sports fans and there is nothing we’d like more than to be able to add the Big Ten Network to our cable systems.
Unfortunately, The Big Ten Network is demanding carriage on our Classic service so they can collect their expensive license fees from virtually all cable customers, not just those interested in college sports.
Fees for sports programming are reeling out of control as sport franchises spin off a limited number of games to create new narrowly specific networks and demand basic cable carriage forcing all cable customers to pay much higher fees for programming.
Insight has consistently been a leader in delivering sports programming from the top sports networks. We were among the first cable companies to carry ESPNU, College Sports Television and the NFL Network. We carry these specialized networks in an appropriate optional package with similar networks. We would very much like to add the Big Ten Network games to this package but BTN has refused to allow us to do so.
I assure you that we want to try to find an agreeable compromise with BTN. We understand that you and other customers are disappointed. We are too. We serve a number of college towns and understand the passion of college sports fans. But, we also want to be fair to customers who are not interested in additional expensive sports programming and BTN won’t allow this. We hope you understand and will join with us to ask BTN to reconsider allowing our customers a choice.
Sincerely,
Michael S. Willner
Vice Chairman & CEO
I think that breaks down to mean:
* BTN isn’t going to be on Insight until BTN caves and allows them to carry it as a part of their sports package. (Will that be resolved by the end of August?)
* The cost of my sports package is probably going to go up, probably on the order of $1-2 a month.
* Because it’s in the digital sports package, we better get an HD feed from it. That sounds obvious, but it’s not… We currently get the NFL network in “Insight 2.0,” but only in SD.
* It’s not clear how much of this decision is Insight’s or Comcast, who will take over Insight in our area by the end of 2007. Comcast is having its own battles with BTN.
About
Huh. An instance where I agree with Insight. Have to admit, I did not see that one coming.
I spoke to with a sales rep from Insight while playing poker last Friday night. He said everyone else whose has not already signed on with the BTN is waiting to see what Comcast does.
Unfortunately, it is between Comcast and the BT at this point. And, to be honest, I guess having it day one is not a big deal. It matters most come November 11th.
I read something in one of the Columbus area paper websites about them considering a “freeview” of some BTN content if an agreement is not reached before some important OSU games. If something like that happens, and could happen around here, that would be nice.