Time Warner, Charter Join BTN Team
Ops Finalize Carriage Contracts In Time For College Football Season Openers
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 8/31/2008 6:05:00 AM
As expected, the Big Ten Network was able to complete carriage deals with Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications in time to show the kickoff of the conference’s football schedule Saturday.
Time Warner Cable and BTN, which announced last Monday night that they has reached an agreement in principle, said Saturday that they had finalized the agreement on carriage terms for the Big Ten Network and its high-definition and video-on-demand programming on Time Warner Cable’s lineups throughout the Big Ten territory, including Ohio and Wisconsin.
Subscribers to the nation’s No. 2 cable operator across Big Ten states were expected to have access to the Aug. 30 college football season openers and all future BTN fare on an expanded basic level of service.
Meanwhile, Charter and BTN tackled a distribution pact for the network and its high-definition and video-on-demand programming on the operator’s systems in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Charter, which announced a carriage agreement in principle on Aug. 27, said that BTN had moved quickly throughout the week to get equipment in place to make certain that customers in these states had access to Saturday’s football action.
BTN also brought Mediacom and Cox into its huddle, closing the major holes in its distribution roster.
Those four operators, along with Comcast, which began airing the network Aug. 15, sat out BTN’s rookie campaign over pricing and positioning issues.
