Big Ten Network restricts audiences

By Joan Fulton, Davenport | Sunday, July 20, 2008

When the Big Ten Network was established, many of us relished the idea of seeing a wide array of sports 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The reality of it has been that we are banned from seeing all BTN productions if Mediacom is our cable provider.

Comcast, the cable provider for most Big Ten states east of here, has now settled with BTN. Instead of carrying BTN on the basic tier and paying $1.10 per cable customer, Comcast has agreed to pay BTN 70 cents per customer and carry it on it’s expanded basic. It then will have the option of changing the tier of service after the 2008-09 basketball season.

As of August 2007, Mediacom was listing 500,000 cable customers in Iowa. What a financial windfall that would be for BTN at $1.10 per month per customer! And surely many of those cable customers are not sports fans.

The Iowa/Iowa State game this year is to be broadcast on BTN. So those not holding seats in Kinnick Stadium will be required to go to their neighborhood sports bar to see the game. This will surely rile many Iowa/Iowa State fans!

Hopefully, those who are as disgusted as I am about being held hostage by these two monopolies and their current lack of negotiations will get on their phones, write letters and demand some sort of settlement before the fall season begins.

Joan Fulton

Davenport