BTW Ready For '08 Season

摘要

It's August, and for football players that means the grind of two-a-day workouts. For those trying to secure Big Ten Network carriage deals with Time Warner Cable, Mediacom and Charter Communications, it hasn't gotten to that point-yet. "No, we haven't gotten to that stage yet," jokes Michael Hopkins, president of affiliate sales and marketing for Fox Cable Networks, during an interview in late July, noting "there's still a month or so to go" before BTN kicks off its first 2008 football games on Aug. 30. "We're negotiating with all of them and remain optimistic there are going to be deals." Hopkins and officials at BTN-the service is owned by the conference's 11 member colleges and Fox National Cable Sports Networks-are buoyed by a recent deal with Comcast that will see the nation's largest MSO initially launch the network as part of its expanded basic tier in seven of the eight states in the Big Ten Conference-Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia market will launch the promotional service on a broadly distributed digital tier. "It's a very exciting time for us as we come up on our second season," said BTN president Mark Silverman. "It's a great opportunity for the network as we launch on Comcast systems on Aug. 15."