BTN to TWC: No dice!
Right: No full carriage! No publicity stunts! No dice!
On Wednesday, Ohio State Director of Athletics Gene Smith took several jabs at Time Warner, Ohio’s largest cable provider and the last of heavyweights who have not signed on to carry the Big Ten Network.
Then Friday afternoon, Time Warner swung like a girl, open-handed and all.
The cable giant proposed a temporary arrangement to Ohio State’s Smith that would of allowed their Time Warner subscribers to see Ohio State football games on a pay-per-view basis until a long-tern solution was signed by both parties.
Time Warner would of let Ohio State set the price and keep all of the revenue, and the cable company would of also provided free converter boxes for those subscribers who didn’t have one in order to watch pay-per-view packages.
Smith forwarded the proposal to Big Ten Network which then on to FOX, who handles the administration and day-to-day operations of the channel.
The network suits responded by saying this nugget of wisdom as reported by Le Doug at the PD:
Time Warner is well aware that it cannot selectively choose to air a network’s programming in lieu of full carriage. In addition, offering to do so to a customer base it has effectively ignored for the past year in not carrying the network is counter-productive and creates both confusion and false hope.”
Basically, BTN is saying all or nothing. Either air the network or don’t. And with just a hair over seven days remaining until Ohio State’s first game, it appears that Time Warner customers are SOL.
I work there and want to tell them to piss off. If I didn’t get my cable for free, I would get directv or dish network. This is ridiculous, if Comcast can come to an agreement, why can’t Time Warner.
Time Warner doesn’t care about us Buckeye fans. Last year, when all this was going on with the Big Ten Network for the first time, I called and asked TW, as a long-time customer, please to add the Big Ten Network. I and thousands of other callers were ignored. Here we are again, 12 months later, and Time Warner is in the same place. Director Gene Smith is right, they likely have no intention, and certainly no sense of urgency, to add the Big Ten Network. We are switching to satellite service.
All cable customers have a choice on whether to have satellite or cable. We switched over a year ago to have the BTN, among other things (picture quality is HORRIBLE for TWC in our area). Even after contacting TWC, they PROMISED us they were in contract signing talks with BTN (in 7/07) and to not leave as they would carry it before kickoff last year! Anyways, the cost may be a few dollars more, the quality and programming makes up for it. And for the record….our reception has gone out twice. Once for a snow drift over top the dish, and once during a hailstorm.
If you want BTN, just switch. It’s painless.