Charter and Cox to Carry ESPN Deportes

[mjtate]

Both cable operators signed new deal with Disney/ESPN to carry ESPN long term. Included in each deal was ESPN Deportes (and ESPNHD for those who care). They didn't announce dates or anything like that. ESPN Deportes will most likes be carried on some special tier, whether that be a sports or hispanic, don't know.

Guess getting rights to MFL wasn't that important after all. Now we need Time Warner to jump aboard!

The article I read was from multichannelnews.com . I don't have the link.

[Northside Rovers]

Exactly. Where is Time Warner on this thing?

[somebody]

when will we have a la carte TV?
I only need CNN, the weather channel, local ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and all the sports channels.

[da_cfo]

ESPN used its muscle to get MSO carriage for ESPN Deportes, which isn't worth much if anything to the MSOs at this point in time because it does NOT have Mexican Futbol MATCHES.

(No more than 500 households watch SportsCenter en Espanol each night. Telefutura's Contacto Deportivo blows it away due to superior distribution on broadcast TV and analog cable.)

The MSOs will carry ESPN Deportes if ESPN allows the MSOs to carry it for virtually nothing, like ESPN allows the MSOs to carry ESPNEWS for virtually nothing.

(FYI: ESPNEWS is dirt cheap to produce: cheap anchors on the order of $50000 per anchor per year and minimum-wage production staff that makes less per hour than the cooks at McDonalds.)

Let's see if ESPN Deportes will have more substance 3 years from now when it has greater distribution.

I can see ESPN trying to outbid FOX Sports Int'l for Serie del Caribe "beisbol" in order to establish a presence in the New York market. (ESPN DOS in Mexico already carries Serie del Caribe beisbol so there is no additional production cost necessary.)

I can also see ESPN demand MLS/SUM for the rights to "InterLiga" when MLS/SUM negotiates the next time-buy/barter deal with ESPN. Those rights are currently held by FOX Sports Int'l.

I would be surprised if ESPN Deportes ever can get its hands on Mexican League Futbol MATCHES because it will never have the distribution offered by the likes of Telemundo (which is down to Atlante home games every other week now that Jaguares de Chiapas has signed with TV Azteca).

(Univision will never allow itself to lose the Televisa package while Azteca America will always have the TV Azteca package).

The only TV channel property in the ESPN family that makes any money is ESPN (but its makes a ton of money, nearly $3 billion in annual subscriber fees alone).

ESPN2 should be close to break even.

The rest all lose money.


Originally posted by mjtate
Both cable operators signed new deal with Disney/ESPN to carry ESPN long term. Included in each deal was ESPN Deportes (and ESPNHD for those who care). They didn't announce dates or anything like that. ESPN Deportes will most likes be carried on some special tier, whether that be a sports or hispanic, don't know.

Guess getting rights to MFL wasn't that important after all. Now we need Time Warner to jump aboard!

The article I read was from multichannelnews.com . I don't have the link.

[da_cfo]

Originally posted by somebody
when will we have a la carte TV?
I only need CNN, the weather channel, local ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and all the sports channels.

The pay TV programming industry will NEVER allow the MSOs to offer most channels a-la-carte, and they will spend millions of dollars on lobbyists to make sure that any Federal legistration proposing a-la-carte pay TV meets a quick death in congressional committee.

The pay TV programming industry knows that 90% of the channels will die if they aren't bundled.

Most people watch perhaps 15 channels at most each week, yet they have to pay for over 100 channels from various packages in order to get those 15 channels.

The industry knows that and wants to keep it that way.

[FlashMan]

I'll be getting ESPN Deportes starting March 1 (at least that's what it said in this morning's San Diego Union). I already get the special "Spanish-language tier" for an extra $2 a month (might be $3). I've been enjoying FSW Espanol for the last month which if Cox didn't get ESPN Deportes soon I wasn't sure I would keep, but in the meantime have been enjoying many matches/programs, including the full slate of pre-Libertadores, many Copa Libertadores matches, amongst others.

Woo-hoo!

[somebody]

Originally posted by FlashMan
I'll be getting ESPN Deportes starting March 1 (at least that's what it said in this morning's San Diego Union). I already get the special "Spanish-language tier" for an extra $2 a month (might be $3). I've been enjoying FSW Espanol for the last month which if Cox didn't get ESPN Deportes soon I wasn't sure I would keep, but in the meantime have been enjoying many matches/programs, including the full slate of pre-Libertadores, many Copa Libertadores matches, amongst others.

Woo-hoo!

way to rub it in

[da_cfo]

Good.

ESPN had to give up raising rates 20% each year.

The rate for ESPN's main channel is now $2.60 per subscriber per month, which is more than twice the amount charged by non-sports channels.

Note than only 12% of all cable subscribers watch sports channels at least once per week.

The annual rate increase by ESPN in the new deals is widely quoted to be 14% each year.

ESPN Deportes, like ESPNEWS, costs the MSOs virtually nothing, i.e. on the order of 1 cent or 2 cents per subscriber per month.

Originally posted by FlashMan
I'll be getting ESPN Deportes starting March 1 (at least that's what it said in this morning's San Diego Union). I already get the special "Spanish-language tier" for an extra $2 a month (might be $3). I've been enjoying FSW Espanol for the last month which if Cox didn't get ESPN Deportes soon I wasn't sure I would keep, but in the meantime have been enjoying many matches/programs, including the full slate of pre-Libertadores, many Copa Libertadores matches, amongst others.

Woo-hoo!

[EscoDU01]

Originally posted by mjtate
Both cable operators signed new deal with Disney/ESPN to carry ESPN long term. Included in each deal was ESPN Deportes (and ESPNHD for those who care). They didn't announce dates or anything like that. ESPN Deportes will most likes be carried on some special tier, whether that be a sports or hispanic, don't know.

Guess getting rights to MFL wasn't that important after all. Now we need Time Warner to jump aboard!

The article I read was from multichannelnews.com . I don't have the link.

Praise the LORD!! Hallejulah!!!!!!!!!

[unclesox]

Here's a link (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2004-02-20-cox-espn-agree_x.htm) to USA Today's article:

Cable operator Cox, ESPN agree on rates
By Rudy Martzke, USA TODAY

The battle over ESPN's hefty subscriber rate increases ended Thursday when No. 4-ranked cable operator Cox agreed to a nine-year deal averaging 7% annual rate increases for the cable giant.
Cox, which had led the fight against ESPN's 20% annual rate boosts that are in the expiring contract, blamed ESPN for rising cable rates and ESPN maintained that its channel brought customers to Cox. The deal guarantees that ESPN will stay on basic rather than move to a higher-cost sports tier.

According to Cox spokesman Bobby Amirshahi, rates that ESPN charges Cox (6.3 million customers) will rise from the current $2.61 a month per subscriber to about $4.38 after nine years.

ESPN's rate increases will decline over the nine years, with 5%-6% boosts in the final five years, Amirshahi said. The new rates begin April 1.

Charter Communications, No. 3 with 6.4 million homes, also agreed to a new deal with ESPN. Comcast (21 million) and Time Warner (12.4 million), the top two cable operators, are expected to carve similar agreements. Comcast's almost $50 billion bid recently to buy ABC/ESPN parent Disney was rejected.

"This is a healthy rate increase off our industry-leading base," ESPN vice president Mike Soltys said.

ESPN had indicated it would come off its 20% rate increases if cable operators contracted for new technology such as video on demand, ESPN HD and Spanish-language ESPN Deportes, all which come with separate charges.

"Unless Cox and Charter are telling you because of this deal we don't have to raise our rates at all or more than half as much as in the past five years, then this may mean nothing for the consumer," said Gene Kimmelman, public policy director of the Consumers Union. "It tells you who is going to make money between the sports programming monopoly or the cable monopoly."

[FlashMan]

Originally posted by somebody
way to rub it in


sorry!!


here's the san diego paper link:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/fri/news/news_1n20espn.html

[Warren Van Orden]

Originally posted by da_cfo
The only TV channel property in the ESPN family that makes any money is ESPN (but its makes a ton of money, nearly $3 billion in annual subscriber fees alone). ESPN2 should be close to break even.
Elaborate? ESPN does have sportscenter and NFL Sunday, but there is a lot of cross over/cross promotion. So given that espn2 is available in nearly as many home as ESPN, I would have expected the 'deuce' to be pulling in at least half what the 'mothership' does.

[Pingudo]

Any posibility that ESPN deportes will be available on BrightHouse anytime soon?

[AndyMead]

Originally posted by somebody
when will we have a la carte TV?
I only need CNN, the weather channel, local ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and all the sports channels.

Actually it exists. Part of the last cable legistlation forces cable companies to offer all channels a la carte.

Since the management costs/return don't favor cable companies, they don't publicize this.

The Raleigh N&O had some feature last year on a guy that was only getting 11 channels.

[OldFanatic]

Anyone knows if any negotiations are going on with Comcast regarding ESPN Deportes (specifically in the San Francisco bay area)? Or there is no hope due to Comcast's hostile bid to buy Disney?

[striker]

Originally posted by AndyMead
Actually it exists. Part of the last cable legistlation forces cable companies to offer all channels a la carte.

Since the management costs/return don't favor cable companies, they don't publicize this.

The Raleigh N&O had some feature last year on a guy that was only getting 11 channels.

Do you mean that I likely can call my local cable company (Time Warner in Austin) and get this a la carte deal too?

[CG]

does anybody know when Charter will start carrying espn deportes and is it a national thing or just select Charter markets?

[AndyMead]

Originally posted by striker
Do you mean that I likely can call my local cable company (Time Warner in Austin) and get this a la carte deal too?

Yes.

[Golazo]

Originally posted by AndyMead
Actually it exists. Part of the last cable legistlation forces cable companies to offer all channels a la carte.

Since the management costs/return don't favor cable companies, they don't publicize this.

The Raleigh N&O had some feature last year on a guy that was only getting 11 channels.

Like the time I told my five-year-old she could have a scoop of chocolate AND a scoop of vanilla on the same cone... and she looked at me like I was both Christ himself and as crazy as Charles Manson..... I am (metaphorically) looking at you like you're insane and a savior. I'd love for you to be right. Do you have any proof... specifically the type of proof that would help me with my good friends at Comcast/Atlanta?

[da_cfo]

Selected markets where a Spanish-language digital cable tier is available, i.e. Southern California.

Originally posted by pvan4
does anybody know when Charter will start carrying espn deportes and is it a national thing or just select Charter markets?