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MWC TV picture muddled further by CSTV changes

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695241176,00.html

MWC TV picture muddled further by CSTV changes

By Scott D. Pierce

Deseret Morning News

Published: January 4, 2008

CSTV, the company the Mountain West Conference tied its television future to in 2004, has ceased to exist as anything approaching an independent entity. CBS, which bought the company in November 2005, has announced that it "will integrate the combined businesses" of CSTV "into the operations of CBS Sports."

That is, in all likelihood, a good thing for CSTV. Whether it's a good thing for the MWC remains to be seen.

And the man who founded and ran CSTV

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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695241176,00.html

MWC TV picture muddled further by CSTV changes

By Scott D. Pierce

Deseret Morning News

Published: January 4, 2008

CSTV, the company the Mountain West Conference tied its television future to in 2004, has ceased to exist as anything approaching an independent entity. CBS, which bought the company in November 2005, has announced that it "will integrate the combined businesses" of CSTV "into the operations of CBS Sports."

That is, in all likelihood, a good thing for CSTV. Whether it's a good thing for the MWC remains to be seen.

And the man who founded and ran CSTV

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There has already been considerable conjecture that CSTV would sell its half of The mtn. to Comcast, which already owns the other half. That speculation will only increase now.

At the other end of this, there's Fox Sports Rocky Mountain and Fox Sports Utah. The regional cable networks are in the process of being acquired by Liberty Media (part of a much bigger deal involving News Corp. (Fox's parent company), DirecTV, the Wall Street Journal and more.

For more than a year, there have been reports in the trade press that Liberty was looking to sell the Fox Sports Net regional networks it's acquiring

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Guest ragtimeJOE

Maybe CBS-CSTV wants out of their contract with us so that they can schedule bigger conferences. They would need to buy us out, so they give us their half of the Mtn. Guess what Comcrap, we just got some more bargaining power :lol:

OK, I know there is no way in heck anything like that happens. At this point, all I can do is laugh. We are going to get so screwed when CBS-CSTV drops their half of the Mtn. Hopefully our few games on CSTV will be higher quality.

I have a really bad feeling about all of this. I'm holding onto hope that as they try to establish themselves, they will cater to us (at least some). I tell you one thing, I won't be bragging if this thing becomes successful--that will be when we get chopped and something bigger moves in.

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I have posted numerous times that the mtn. has to be losing money at a fast rate, and this article says the same thing................now with CBS on board, how long before executives at CBS start looking at the bottom line and the viability of a money losing network that has little to no appeal outside of Utah, Wyoming & parts of Colorado & New Mexico? (I left out LV & SD due to perhaps only 50% market exposure & DFW which has NEVER had the mtn.).

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if this spring is the last time we will view the mtn. in it's current state (as an independent entity with no ties to another network)........it will either be absorbed into CSTV and the "studio" shows of the mtn. will be termintated for a more national type of coverage provided by CSTV.............and then CSTV will go after the BCS conferences to add to the lineup of potential games..........and the best of those games could be shown on CBS stations nationwide for easy national exposure.

Looks like the time clock could be ticking on this failed mtn. experiment.

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I have posted numerous times that the mtn. has to be losing money at a fast rate, and this article says the same thing................now with CBS on board, how long before executives at CBS start looking at the bottom line and the viability of a money losing network that has little to no appeal outside of Utah, Wyoming & parts of Colorado & New Mexico? (I left out LV & SD due to perhaps only 50% market exposure & DFW which has NEVER had the mtn.).

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if this spring is the last time we will view the mtn. in it's current state (as an independent entity with no ties to another network)........it will either be absorbed into CSTV and the "studio" shows of the mtn. will be termintated for a more national type of coverage provided by CSTV.............and then CSTV will go after the BCS conferences to add to the lineup of potential games..........and the best of those games could be shown on CBS stations nationwide for easy national exposure.

Looks like the time clock could be ticking on this failed mtn. experiment.

Most emerging networks often take a while to ramp up. This only seems like an excessively long time because of how it negatively affects our fanbase- to execs it is probably par for the course. FWIW, the "bleeding money" quote comes from Kim Carver in response to accusations earlier this year that Comcast was not neogtiating in faith and purposefully not getting a deal with satellite so people would switch. She was in effect saying that in the long run the network needs satellite distribution to work, so "withholding" it would be akin to cutting off the nose to spite the face.

In this more recent article about the Big Ten network, she seems to sing a different tune:

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2007/...ng_unfamil.aspx

She did, however, say most networks face similar troubles when looking for distribution in the first few years. While the wrath of die-hard college sports fans highlights the negative of those who can't watch, Carver optimistically said she would advise other conferences to "go for it" and create a network.

Will the other NCAA conferences follow her lead?

"Million dollar question," Carver said. "I think so. I think it's a direction a lot of conferences will eventually look to go to. When you have a network dedicated 24-hours a day to your conference, you can really get invested into it."

Those comments are those of a network on the precipice of closing shop.

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Guest ragtimeJOE

I guess the bottomline is what does this do to our situation? Anyone have any ideas? Will it help get the Mtn on satt? Will it kill the Mtn? If CBS unloads their half of the Mtn, will that be good or bad? etc. etc. I imagine it is too early to tell.

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I guess the bottomline is what does this do to our situation? Anyone have any ideas? Will it help get the Mtn on satt? Will it kill the Mtn? If CBS unloads their half of the Mtn, will that be good or bad? etc. etc. I imagine it is too early to tell.

Definitely too early to tell. Lots of extrapolation in the article and on message boards. My guess is that short term we won't see much difference from our end with CSTV in-house than with the previous arrangement (out-house? :blink: ). Long term is where a lot could happen.

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Agree. This may accelerate change from the Mtn business side. They have a financial need to stem the flow of money into a black hole.

It would NOT be hard to make the Mtn profitable. CBS or Fox both have the resources and outlets to make the Mtn viable.

A regional network would be a start.

Go Cougars

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Agree. This may accelerate change from the Mtn business side. They have a financial need to stem the flow of money into a black hole.

It would NOT be hard to make the Mtn profitable. CBS or Fox both have the resources and outlets to make the Mtn viable.

A regional network would be a start.

The mtn. is a regional network now. Only problem is it only reaches those in the region that have cable service, so even regionally the mtn. doesn't have over 60% of the regions households. Secondly, the region the mtn. covers is the least populated region in the country, so even that leaves some head scratching.

The real glaring obvious issue is that the teasm in the MWC outside of BYU do not have much of a following........yes the are he few scatered alumni & displaced fans around, but nothing like the major schools in the BCS conferences have.

Here in LV I can go find bars that specifically cater to LV area fans of schools from around the country, even a Montana bar............yet not one MWC school has any representation here that I know of.

The MWc just doesn't have the national fan base and doesn't play on the national level to warrant any satellite company to pruchase this netowrk..........it almost has to be given away free or thrown into a package deal with other sports oriented channels...........no way can the mtn. stand alone and survive.

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Something else to consider on this whole "merge FSN RM with the mtn." thing. FSN RM covers Colorado and a small part of western Nebraska. Colorado and Nebraska fan areas. Since FSN pays big bucks for the Big 12 cable rights, why would they shut off that coverage (along with PAC-10 coverage they pay through the nose for), to broadcast the MWC?

Altitude Sports & Entertainment is your friend, though it means that most games probably have to go untelevised or back to local coverage since ASE has their coverage of the Avs and Nuggets.

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Something else to consider on this whole "merge FSN RM with the mtn." thing. FSN RM covers Colorado and a small part of western Nebraska. Colorado and Nebraska fan areas. Since FSN pays big bucks for the Big 12 cable rights, why would they shut off that coverage (along with PAC-10 coverage they pay through the nose for), to broadcast the MWC?

Altitude Sports & Entertainment is your friend, though it means that most games probably have to go untelevised or back to local coverage since ASE has their coverage of the Avs and Nuggets.

If the mtn. does get merged into FSN's in Utah & Colorado, it still leaves out the TCU, NM, UNLV & SDSU fans...........so if the MWC's idea of TV coverage is only in Utah & Colorado, then they will have another issue with the areas that don't get any coverage............unless the MWC/FSN's make the games avaialble on local TV stations in LV, SD, AlbyQ & DFW.

Otherwise turn the 4 loose to make their own TV deals and screw the confernce deal..................it could be like the current situation between UNLV & UNR hwere each won't allow the other to air the games due to a pissing match.

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I emailed Curtis Eichelburger who broke this story on bloomberg. This is my correspondance with him and LeslieAnne Wade...

Hi Douglas, Here is the response from CBS to your question. Best. Curtis

----- Original Message -----

From: LeslieAnne Wade <lwade@CBS.com>

At: 1/04 10:33:55

The mtn distribution is a priority for the conference, comcast and cbs,

but certainly it is too early too quantify how and when the change will

move this effort forward.

-----Original Message-----

From: CURTIS EICHELBERGER, BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM:

[mailto:ceichelberge@bloomberg.net]

Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 9:33 AM

To: Wade, LeslieAnne

Subject: LeslieAnne, question from Bloomberg. C

LeslieAnne, I received an email thsi morning from a reader and I don't

know the

answer. Can you help me respond to this, please? Curtis at Bloomberg

News

----- Original Message -----

From: Douglas J Ross <housestrategies@gmail.com>

At: 1/04 0:56:09

now that they will be under the same roof, how will this effect the mtn

network which is 50% owned by CSTV and 50% owned by Comcast. Many in the

Mountain West states have been waiting for two years for Comcast and the

Satellites to come to an agreement on allowing Satellite customers to

have access to the mtn and for Comcast customers outside the Mountain

West Conference footprint to have access to the mtn either bundled in a

package or a la carte.

Any news regarding the effects this will have on the mtn would be

appreciated.

DJ

--

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The mtn. is a regional network now. Only problem is it only reaches those in the region that have cable service, so even regionally the mtn. doesn't have over 60% of the regions households. Secondly, the region the mtn. covers is the least populated region in the country, so even that leaves some head scratching.

You're arguing over the meaning of 'regional network'. A regional network - to me - is a network that's almost universally available in that region. It's not.

I disagree with your other points as well....bandwidth is abundant. Quality content is not. Specialized content (like football games) are very valuable. Maybe the prices are wrong and what comcast wants or has to have to be in the black is out of whack with what they can get. That's one thing, but arguing that there's not enough demand to get it there is ridiculous and naive.

The MWC is not UNLV. UNLV may, in fact, be the most unrepresentative football program (as far as fan support goes) in the whole damn league. If BYU's fan base (which I would argue exceeds 1M by itself) is unrepresentative, so is your own anecdotal bar poll. Further, if you have two odd samples, one with no weight, and one with a lot of weight, guess which one actually matters when it comes to evaluating what is and isn't? (Hint, not the meaningless one).

Go Cougars

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