The-Ozone, Ohio State Football, Wrestling, Softball, Basketball, Hockey, Baseball and More

Football
Big Ten Network Chief Says BTN Anxious for Deal with Time Warner
By John Porentas

Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman was in Columbus on Tuesday doing a little PR work.

Ohio is the state in the Big Ten footprint with the least penetration by the Big Ten network, primarily due to the lack of an agreement with cable provider Time Warner. Silverman met with OSU Department of Athletic officials to update them on the status of the negotiations with Time Warner and also took to the airwaves on local radio and television outlets to get his side of the story out.

"I want fans to know that right now we have a long way to go," said Silverman in an exclusive the-Ozone interview.

"We need to make progress, significant progress, in a short amount of time in order to get a deal of this scope done in the next two and half weeks."

The two and a half weeks to which Silverman alluded is the time remaining before the opening kickoff of the football season. The problem facing the parties involved is that an 11th-hour agreement would not leave enough time to dot the i's, cross the t's and get all the ducks in a row that need to be in a row to get the network distributed.

"It's not a long period of time when you don't have a deal done to get from where we are now, to go from an agreement in principle and then to get it legalized and a legal agreement all done before kickoff and have time to send out all the receivers so that they can get the signal and put it on the air, not to mention figure out overflow channels and all that other stuff. There's just a lot to get done and we need to make a lot of progress in a very short period time," said Silverman.

Due to the lack of an agreement with Time Warner distribution of the Big Ten Network in Ohio has lagged behind that of the other Big Ten states.

"It (BTN distribution) varies from (a low of) about 40 percent here and in Wisconsin, Time Warner is major provider in Wisconsin as well," said Silverman.

"In Indiana and Illinois we're about 90 percent. In Michigan we're about 80 percent. In Pennsylvania we're over 80 percent. In Iowa we're about 50 percent, there's still one big provider we're talking with," Silverman said.

On the bright side, Cox Cable provides cable service for the Cleveland area, and Silverman was optimistic that Cox would come to an agreement with the BTN before the opening game. Silverman, however, is extremely anxious to have a deal with Time Warner.

"There's no bigger market for the Big Ten than Columbus," Silverman said.

"The ratings are the highest there are in any Big Ten area, this is where the fans are among the most, if not the most, diehard, strong, passionate fans. We very much want to get this deal done."

Silverman and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany are not directly involved in the negotiations with Time Warner. Minority Big Ten Network partner The Fox Network is responsible for all distribution so therefore does the negotiating, though Silverman and Delany get daily updates on the status of negotiations. Complicating the negotiations somewhat is the network's recent agreement with Comcast, the largest cable provider in the country. The network has been willing to negotiate almost any issue including price with local providers and has done so but now feels that the Comcast deal has put a floor under their pricing and prevents them from offering any sort of better deal to Time Warner.

Return to the-Ozone Columns and Features

Return to the-OZone Front Page