Big Ten Network meeting with NFL Network-style cable stalemate

While the upcoming Big Ten Network will be carried on DirecTV when it debuts in August, cable operators are feeling strongarmed into carrying it for all customers, whether they want it or not. This is according to a recent article in the New York Times.

Sound familiar?

If you’ve been a football fan with cable in the last year or two, you probably remember the advertising campaign launched by NFL Network in NFL teams’ markets where cable operators refused carriage on basic cable packages. The network complained when cable operators like Time Warner Cable wanted to stick the network in a special “sports tier.” The cable companies said the asking price was too high, especially for a channel that not everyone is interested in, and it might cause all subscribers’ rates to rise.

Now cable operators Comcast and Time Warner Cable, which both serve communities in our area — are balking at Big Ten Network’s insistence on placement on basic cable and the asking price of $1.10 per subscriber to carry the channel. (In contrast, basic cable subscribers already pay well over $2.00 a head for ESPN but much less for other networks.) Big Ten Network only charges 10 cents for subscribers in markets outside the Big Ten Conference.

Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany says “All I’ll say is I have a hard time seeing many more offerings with more appeal than ours.” David Cohen, an executive vice president for Comcast says “We’d like to make the network available to those who want to watch it and not force customers who have no interest in the content to have to pay for it.” Time Warner shares Comcasts view of the situation.

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