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Time Warner just got kicked in the balls.
Story just came across the wires.
Time Warner just got kicked in the balls.
What does "simulcast" mean?
Good.
I won't have to endure the compainion video cast this week on nfl.com.
simultaneous broadcast
It means you'll be getting the same broadcast on all three channel (NFL, NBC, CBS). So the CBS and NBC broadcasts will not have their announcers, graphics, and coverage team. We all get to enjoy Bryant Gumbel one last time.
That's in cool, although I wish CBS or NBC would have Madden/Michaels or Nantz/Sims and overall presentation.
December 26, 2007
Patriots-Giants Game Now on NBC and CBS
By RICHARD SANDOMIR, nytIMES
The Patriots-Giants game, which was to be broadcast Saturday night to less than half the country by the NFL Network, will be available to the entire nation under an agreement reached Wednesday by NBC and CBS to simulcast it.
The 15-0 Patriots are attempting to become the first National Football League team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to go undefeated throughout the entire regular season. Miami went on to win the Super Bowl and finish 17-0 that season.
NBC and CBS will show the NFL Network’s production of the game, with the announcers Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth, and will not pay an extra rights fee. They will each get to sell 18 30-second commercial units.
Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports, said yesterday by telephone that in a conversation in October with Steve Bornstein, the chief executive of the NFL Network, that he would be amenable to a simulcast, and would share it with another broadcast network, if the Patriots’ momentum toward an undefeated season continued. Then, on Monday morning, Bornstein called to ask him if his idea was still viable for NBC.
“As early as last week, I didn’t think it would happen, but then Steve called and I ran it past Jeff, and he said, ‘yes,’ ” said Ebersol, referring to Jeff Zucker, the president of NBC Universal. He added, “I’m intrigued by the historic nature of two over-the-air networks carrying the game. It’ll be fun and will give the NFL Network a chance to exhibit their wares.”
Joe Browne, a spokesman for the league, said: “The two networks independently expressed an interest in carrying the game. They saw the problems we were having with a few of the big cable companies, and so we went back to them earlier this week, and said, ‘What if you both simulcast the NFL Network?’ ”
The NFL Network has found itself with fewer subscribers than it wanted because major cable operators like Time Warner, Cablevision and Charter do not carry it, and Comcast, makes it available only on its digitial sports tier. Comcast is involved in two lawsuits against the league; a judge’s ruling earlier this year allowed it to shift the NFL Network from a broadly-available digital tier to the sports tier that requires an extra fee.
Until Wednesday’s deal, the Patriots-Giants game would have been available to the NFL Network’s 43 million satellite and cable subscribers. Another 10.8 million TV households in the New York-New Jersey and Boston-Manchester, N.H., markets were to get it free on local broadcast stations because they live within the teams’ designated home markets.
The simulcast marks the first time since Super Bowl I in 1967 when NBC and CBS, or any two networks, have simultaneously carried the same N.F.L. game. But in that previous game, separate NBC and CBS crews produced and announced it.
The league’s decision to simulcast the game came amid mounting Congressional pressure to make the potentially historic game more broadly available.
The Connecticut delegation wrote to Commissioner Roger Goodell that the league’s definition of home markets was “unduly narrow,” leaving fans in cities around the state where loyalties are divided between their Giants and Patriots, without the same local broadcast option afforded the New York and Boston markets.
The Rhode Island delegation also protested the league’s market designations that would have deprived Patriots’ fans in Providence and throughout the state of seeing their team go undefeated unless they subscribed to DirecTV or the Dish Network, or got the NFL Netword from their local cable operators.
The league was also warned by Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, and a member of the committee, that it was “exercising its substantial market power to the detriment of consumers.” They cautioned that the strategy might lead to a re-examination by Congress of the league’s ememption from an rust laws regarding the joint negotiation of its broadcast television rights.
FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU Time Warner, Comcast and the like. This is great news for the consumers. More and more people with power are starting to realize the idiocy of this dispute with the greedy cable companies.
Props to the NFL and its network for going above and beyond to makes ends meet. This partnered with the offered third party arbitration will hopefully lead to a total collapse of any power the cable companies had in this dispute.
All this excitement about the perfect season possibility and watch them lose.
I hope the Giants at least give an effort. It would suck if they just pack it in and get blown out by 30.
Jacobs and Burress are banged up. I don't think Coughlin will play them much. I hope I'm wrong.
I really don't care for the Pats but it would be cool to see a team go a perfect 19-0 to win the championship. Since my team isn't anywhere near the playoffs it would be cool to see some history.
Do what?
The cable companies just won an absolute victory. The NFL is showing these games on NBC/CBS because senators from the New England states, along with Arlen Specter, were threatening to revoke the NFL's an rust exemption if the game were not made widely availble. The game is over for the NFL Network.
What, did you think Time Warner had some conspiracy to keep you from watching football?
Not really, since the Internet enables me to watch any game I want for free I have no interest in this issue, but the way I understood it was that the cable companies wanted customers to pay for the NFL channel, and now a big game is going to be simulcast on network television for free. . . looks to me like the NFL got what they wanted, if only for this potential history making game.
hold on cowboy, NFL network is only doing this because their anti-trust exemption is being threatened in congress because of this time-warner vs NFL network bull .
The NFL not only wants to force carriers to pay its exorbitant rights fees for the NFL Network, but then wants to force them to carry NFL Network on basic cable so they can maximize their own advertising revenue.
The cable companies want to force the NFL Network out of existence, in part so they don't have to pay more money for games they previously got to carry, and in part because they want the games currently on NFL Network to be on one of the cable-owned networks (TW owns TNT/TBS; Comcast owns Vs.)
By the NFL being forced to televise an NFL Network game over the air, they lose all leverage they had to pressure the cable companies. The business model for keeping the games on an in-house network as opposed to selling the rights fees just imploded. Jerry Jones lost big time.
i am with Extra Stout here, the NFL caved realizing mass amounts of customers were NOT leaving cable to watch their network. These games will be broadcast, albeit through a third party, on TW and Comcast. I don't see how anyone can claim this as a victory for the NFL Network.
thats right, but i have NFL network...so, whatever.
Do what?
The cable companies just won an absolute victory. The NFL is showing these games on NBC/CBS because senators from the New England states, along with Arlen Specter, were threatening to revoke the NFL's an rust exemption if the game were not made widely availble. The game is over for the NFL Network.
What, did you think Time Warner had some conspiracy to keep you from watching football?
I guess the GREEDY ass NFL just got bent over by fan pressure & politicians!
Take that NFL, take it without lube u !!!
Time Warner got what they wanted & didn't have to bend over to the Stalin-like NFL!
Kudos to all companies that resisted...
To all the SUCKAS that felt like you had to get NFL network, u been DUPED!
SORRY man!
Too boracho to drv anywhere...
Next we need to meet up wayyyy BEFORE the game
Great! Now the whole world gets to see ShEli get his vag pounded by the Pats.
NBC and CBS will show the NFL Network’s production of the game, with the announcers Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth, and will not pay an extra rights fee. They will each get to sell 18 30-second commercial units.
No where have I read what you stated above. The ball is high in favor of the NFL network I don't see how you can see it any other way. With the NFL offering 3rd party arbitration and TW refusing, it paints the NFL in the perfect light. They sought resolution and TW refused. The NFL network has proactively attempted to find a reasonable solution and now they completely voided themselves of all power to show how eager they are to put an end to this. Huge victory for the NFL. Offering 3rd party arbitration was the catalyst for all of this.Do what?
The cable companies just won an absolute victory. The NFL is showing these games on NBC/CBS because senators from the New England states, along with Arlen Specter, were threatening to revoke the NFL's an rust exemption if the game were not made widely availble. The game is over for the NFL Network.
What, did you think Time Warner had some conspiracy to keep you from watching football?
If it was "over" for the NFL they never would have offered 3rd party resolution. It would have crushed the entire bases of what they are trying to accomplish. They made a genius move by putting TW on the spot and TW was the one that refused to seek a fair settlement. Now they are showing their flexablity even more so.
This wasn't forced by any power. Not any power that I've seen, read or heard.
Link me up to more info if you have it but all indications show that the Network is taking the right strides to find a reasonable solution.
Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports, said yesterday by telephone that in a conversation in October with Steve Bornstein, the chief executive of the NFL Network, that he would be amenable to a simulcast, and would share it with another broadcast network, if the Patriots’ momentum toward an undefeated season continued. Then, on Monday morning, Bornstein called to ask him if his idea was still viable for NBC.
“As early as last week, I didn’t think it would happen, but then Steve called and I ran it past Jeff, and he said, ‘yes,’ ” said Ebersol, referring to Jeff Zucker, the president of NBC Universal. He added, “I’m intrigued by the historic nature of two over-the-air networks carrying the game. It’ll be fun and will give the NFL Network a chance to exhibit their wares.”
Joe Browne, a spokesman for the league, said: “The two networks independently expressed an interest in carrying the game. They saw the problems we were having with a few of the big cable companies, and so we went back to them earlier this week, and said, ‘What if you both simulcast the NFL Network?’ ”
What exorbitant fee? Their asking price is right in line with like channels. Their price is reasonable. This is about TW wanting to put it on their tier to double the cost of their sports package and increase their investment.
This is exactly why the NFL Network offered arbitration. No way would they offer to void their own power and leave the fate of their channel in the hands of third party if they felt that their demands were highly unreasonable oe if their asking price was way out of line.
If they were so wrong and to blame TW would have taken the arbitration in a second. You have it backwards. TW knows the demand is reasonable but if the 3rd party leans to the NFL side which it will, it kills any chance TW and Comcast have to raise the price of their sports teir and charge 12-15 bucks monthly to each subscriber. Keeping this channel off of regular cable equals millions upon millions of dollars for the cable companies, all the NFL has asked is to be treated just as fairly as the rest of the channels on the basic package.
Go back in the TW thread and check their asking price, its right in the middle if not twords the low end. You guys need to abandon the entire "NFLs demands are too high" because its flat ficticious.
I do however agree that putting the Network on cable drives up the advertising revenue. That is the point, the channel could grow leaps and bounds with the right exposure. I for one want that. I want better content and programming. I would watch the channel if it was better, but it can't get there without the right advertising revenue. TW could care less.
Not really. TimeWarner wanted only those people who wanted the network to have to pay for it. If TimeWarner puts it on a basic package, all consumers will pay more no matter if they want it or not.
It really shouldn't have much of an effect on the dispute. NFL Network will get increased advertising revenue with the simulcast since a good chunk of the advertising is theirs. It might have the effect of encouraging people to switch to providers that carry the game, and it might give the cable companies clout to keep pushing for the sports tier placement. Who knows.
That's true but cable is going to go up reguardless. The increase won't be anymore than any other channel. TW acts as if the cable prices never rise and they certainly don't rise when new channels are added. Its laughable.
Having seen several of Dallas' games simulcast already this year, I doubt this simulcast will do anything to encourage consumers to switch. Collinsworth and Gumble don't put on a good show and consumers will be left with the impression that if the game is big enough it will be simulcast anyway.
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