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August 6, 2009

More Penn State games on TV?

Diane Petryk

SUNBURY ó The city's cable TV provider is close to an agreement with Big Ten Network, and perhaps a pact will be reached in time for it to provide Penn State's football opener Sept. 5.

If it falls through, local fans will need tickets or a satellite dish, or a good friend with one, to see the Lions play Akron.

Jeff Nelson, Penn State's sports information director, said at least four, possibly five games, including a conference game at Illinois, will air on the Big Ten Network.

About 80 percent of the "footprint" of the Big Ten, encompassing eight states, has access to the Big Ten Network, but not Sunbury, Lewisburg and the immediate vicinity.

That's because cable providers here, Service Electric Cablevision and CATV, have not acquiesced to the Big Ten Network's demand that carriers include it in their offerings to all subscribers, not just as an optional purchase.

"That's not fair," said Sam Haulman, president of CATV, which serves Danville, Lewisburg, Milton and Watsontown. "It would require a rate increase and not enough customers want it for the cost to be absorbed by all."

The Big Ten Conference owns 51 percent of the network; Fox own the rest.

Haulman said CATV would like the opportunity to include Big Ten Network, "but not in the main package."

That's exactly the type of deal Service Electric Cablevision reported it was working on early Wednesday.

Donald Brandt, director of programming, said he was very close to a deal for Big Ten Network access for Service Electric's digital subscribers, not to include "basic" or "limited basic" analog subscribers. It would not have required a rate increase at any level, he said.

CATV's Haulman said that surprised him. And hour later he called The Daily Item to report an e-mail from a Fox representative.

"He said he'd like to meet with me next week," Haulman said, "so maybe they have made some changes."

At almost the same time, Brandt called back to report he could no longer speak to the levels of service that would be included in a deal with Big Ten Network.

"We might not have a deal," he said.

Then again, they might.

"We're very close to an agreement with Service (Electric Cablevision)," Big Ten Network vice president Elizabeth Conlisk said Wednesday.

Brandt said he still had high hopes they would complete a deal in time to broadcast the Sept. 5 game, just that the level of distribution was not determined. "We'll have to wait for the deal to be completed," he said.

Haulman said ala carte models of delivering cable service are not economically feasible at this time. If they could select only what they wanted, customers would actually end up paying more, he said.

He said the Big Ten Network is expensive, but added that he could not disclose costs.

Which all sounds like much ado about nothing to Gary Shoop, of Danville. Called Penn State's biggest fan, Shoop said the Big Ten Network is unimpressive.

First of all, he's a football season ticket holder. But even if he weren't, the Big Ten Network, he said, shows only games of lesser importance. The big games are carried by ABC and ESPN, he said, and for the rest, there's satellite.

But he thinks the local cable providers should have it, if nothing else, for the other sports it airs. He said he likes to watch Big Ten wrestling.

Nelson pointed out that the network does not provide exclusively sports-related content.

"Each school has five hours a month on average of non-sports content "î 60 hours a year "î and it's up to each institution to provide that content."ù

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