Scholar
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137 Messages
SEC NETWORK PLACEMENT
was watching uverse sports on ch.1600 about the mississippi state bulldogs baseball team....and an icon flashed every few minutes about the sec network coming august 14 on channel 1607...at least it placed before the longhorn network
shewjr
Scholar
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137 Messages
11 years ago
1 Attachment
SEC NET.jpg
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vid30jk
Scholar
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75 Messages
11 years ago
Appears ESPN is more hopeful of success with SEC than with Longhorn.
Just thinking out loud: This *could* push ESPN to work with AT&T to open access to Longhorn to Sports Tier, or even U-300. Kinda makes sense to have the regional networks they control on the same level. It certainly would help Longhorn.
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JefferMC
ACE - Expert
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36.9K Messages
11 years ago
I believe the Longhorn network is U-300 in the area of the school that it serves: The State of Texas, and U-450 elsewhere. Having to pay ESPN the full fee for every U-300 customer in the entire country would be a waste. The only time I've ever wanted to watch it was when UT hosted a NCAA Softball Regional last year; it was carried on TLN.
The SEC Network will serve schools in eleven states (including Texas), covering a large swath of AT&T's U-verse service area.
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MicCheck
ACE - Expert
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605 Messages
11 years ago
It's in the u200 in Texas
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JefferMC
ACE - Expert
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36.9K Messages
11 years ago
Ooops. U-200 is all the more reason for that to be Texas-only. Knowing that AT&T doesn't want to pay LHN for every U-200 subscriber in the country.
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vid30jk
Scholar
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75 Messages
11 years ago
What I was alluding to was that if ESPN can get AT&T to pick up SEC Network (which will cover a larger area "locally") and run it nationwide, in whatever tier they deem as minimum, then ESPN is practically shooting itself in the foot if they don't try to massage AT&T into a wider Longhorn distribution.
Longhorn, to me, is just like the LA Dodgers situation with Time Warner. ESPN is footing the bill for Longhorn and trying to charge a premium upon a premium for it, which once SEC comes along, doesn't really make good business sense. ESPN acts as if this sort of thing has never been done before. Big Ten Network has had carriage nationwide for YEARS already, yet somehow they can't figure out how to get a fledgling, one-school (basically) college network to get carriage with all of their huge-ness? If they just settled for, let's say, 10 cents a customer, similar to their ESPNNews, and bundled it with ESPNNews/ESPNU (similar to the way Viacom got carriage of their "MTV Digital Suite"), they would have received carriage practically nationwide, and at least had SOME revenue for what they'd invested.
Look to the similar debacle Discovery Networks created for itself when they took their low-rated, yet significantly carried, Discovery Health and decided to bank on the name-association of The Oprah when creating OWN. They were stuck paying the bills for a network that nobody was watching. In fact, things were SO dismal, and the viewers wanted those Health programs, that they decided to revamp Fit TV into Discovery Fitness & Health to get those previous viewers back -- even though DFH suffered from narrow distribution.
And let's not forget the Fox Sports guys. They already have Big Ten, and they're probably not sitting on their hands in making changes to the Fox College Sports' three feeds that have been carried pretty much since "digital" came along. Their biggest challenges with Fox Sports 1 and 2 are waning, and FCS would naturally be the next networks to upgrade. If they can get HD rolled out for the FCS channels, they'll be well on their way.
SO with this proliferation of college-niche channels, ESPN is funneling cash down the rabbit hole of Longhorn, while everyone else is taking pieces of their share of the distribution pie. Eventually, their "premium" for this ONE channel will turn against them, in that the MSOs, the DBS providers, and AT&T can ask for bargain-basement price to reach their customers, compared to the others out there.
ESPN has had, what, at least two years under its belt to get Longhorn more widely distributed? You can kinda see how much they *really* care about it, if a "competitor" college network that THEY are pouring money into can get more eyeballs right out of the chute.
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JefferMC
ACE - Expert
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36.9K Messages
11 years ago
My suggestion would be to shut it down, along with any of these other too-narrowly-focused-too-be-profitable niche channels.
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baseballisback
ACE - Professor
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8.2K Messages
11 years ago
Never gonna happen. They're too profitable for the schools. BTN, for example, isn't just football and basketball, but also national coverage for sports that wouldn't get TV coverage anywhere like track and field, soccer, softball, etc.
These niche channels all help with the conferences/schools in the national spotlight as well as recruiting for the teams (which obviously help the conferences get stronger.)
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JefferMC
ACE - Expert
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36.9K Messages
11 years ago
BTN is bigger than one school. And I still barely watch it.
I've only had once instance to even think of watching the LHN since its inception, and it was for a game where Texas was hosting a regional.
And while it may be profititable to the school for now, when it becomes a money loser for ESPN, something's got to give.
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