Broadcasting & Cable reports that DirecTV has notified its customers that it might drop the Comcast-owned sports channel Versus on September 1 unless the two sides can work out a carriage deal.
There are a lot of sports fans who have DirecTV, and Versus carries the gamut from college sports for certain conferences to extreme cage fighting to NHL games.
Normally my feeling is that these deals always get worked out in the eleventh hour. Like when Time Warner Cable was threatening not to broadcast Viacom channels like Nickelodeon. But the Viacom offerings are a pretty big part of any basic cable package. Versus? Not so much, really and there can't be much love lost between DirecTV and Comcast.
So I'm not as sure this will be resolved by September 1. Still, I'm guessing it gets worked out by October when Versus begins televising NHL games. Versus is currently in around 75 million homes.
DirecTV doesn’t have channels like AMC HD, BBC America HD, msnbc HD, multiplexed premium HD’s among others is because of DirecTV’s concentration on adding every conceivable RSN and it’s alternate in it’s determination to be the sports leader. Now they want to drop a channel with NHL, Coll. Football, IRL and cycling?
Don’t forget Indy Car! Basterds better keep it!
lol, GaryW. Good of you to name a bunch of obscure HD channels that the majority of people don’t give a shit about. Size up DirecTV’s HD lineup to any other provider and you’ll see they’re way ahead. And who says they WANT to drop the channel? There’s always at least two sides to a business negotiation. For all we know, Comcast is asking for a ridiculous amount so GTFO.
Versus does a nice job with college football and Indy car racing. I would hate to lose them. Work it out guys.
I understand that Versus is ready to compete with ESPN for the larger TV rights like baseball and even the NFL.
Forgot one thing, I still wish DIRECT TV would pick up NBC’s Universal Sports.
The only reason we moved to Direct TV from Dish several years ago was because of the PBR. We will not hesitate to change again if we cannot watch Bull Riding on versus.
I love watching the cycling on versus. I am going to be very pissed off if they drop it. I would have missed seeing america’s legion in cycling lance armstrong in his return to the tour de france, not good!!!!!!
awesome. For the network that carries the NHL we have 3 posters that would cancel their directTv/or at least be really upset about losing bull riding, indy car, and cycling, 3 of the most marginally popular sports in the country and zero posters worried about the NHL. poor nhl, when bull riding has more viewers up in arms than your league, you might be in trouble.
First of all, the NHL’s regular season ratings on Versus were somewhere around 300,000 viewers per game this past season. That’s good for what? 200th or so in the weekly ratings chart?
The Tour de France doesn’t return until next July; the NHL playoffs — the only NHL telecasts that got even marginally decent ratings, don’t start until April. So there is plenty of time to reach an agreement before those events roll around again,
And the Versus NCAA football lineup is pretty weak — at best a fourth selection from games in the Pac-10 and Big XII, some MWC games and it carries some Ivy League games. Week in and week out there arguably is more interest in the military academy games carried by CBS College sports (and DirecTV in HD) than in the patched-together, inconsistent, hand-me-down Versus lineup.
But with more than 20 HD college football games available to DirecTV subs each week, I doubt the Versus games will be missed by many. (The first week, Versus doesn’t carry any NCAA football games,so the initial games subs would miss would be Texas at Wyoming Sept 12, Duke at Kansas and Florida State at BYU, both on Sept. 19, then Cornell at Yale along with a Pac-10 game TBA on Sept. 26. None of them seem to be clashes of the titans, no other networks have been beating down the door to carry them and all would be far down the list of HD-available games on their weekends. Of course I realize that fans of those schools would disagree on the Saturdays they could get blacked out.)
And another thought: Comcast has always steadfastly refused to allow DirecTV to carry its Philadelphia RSN. Perhaps this is DirecTV’s payback. In addition, if DirecTV’s assertion is correct that Comcast is trying to charge it more than it charges cable companies (and the Roberts’ hatred for satellite makes that seem at least plausible) why should DirecTV pay?
DirecTV carries every RSN available to it (though not Cox’s San Diego RSN nor Comcast’s Philadelphia version — and only because both are withheld by their cable parents); it carries all MLB games, usually from each of the two cvtiies in HD; it carries every NBF game in HD; it carries virtually every NBA game in HD; it carries every NCAA Basketball Tournament game; it has put together marvelous bonus camera channels for major golf and tennis championships and it offer a NASCAR in-car pass.
As long as DirecTV keeps NFL, MLB, NBA, NASCAR and NCAA basketball fans happy it probably needn’t fear to wrath of the rodeo, TdF and regular season NHL fans. Better it should hammer ESPN to gets its Game Plan college football games delivered in HD this year for the first time.
And a final question: who will be hurt more by this potential move? DirecTV, upsetting a very small minority of its subscribers, or Comcast, losing a big chunk of the Versus subscriber pool?
If they don’t renew it is time for cable.
I’ve pretty much been keeping Direct TV just so I can watch the Tour de France bike live in July. No more VS? Then it’s bye-bye Direct TV.
Pac 10 games are carried on versus if conflicts with Fox Sports West. No UCLA games or Tour dFrance- goodbye versus. I pay extra charge for Fox Sports channels so put it there if they want some more $$.
Ditto BiffBiker.
Fred Farrer, one reason given my Comcast to not provide CSN Philadelphia to any satelite TV provider is that they are using the original PRISM network to distribute the channel, and do not have to bounce the network off of a satellite. The other CSN channels are broadcast via satellite, so thusly, must be provided to satellite TV companies. Verizon Fios in the Philly area does get CSN Philadelphia since it is a land line system, thusly, must be provided with all local stations, especially one that is also transmitted by land lines.
After additional thought on this subject, I’m thinking we should pressure DirectTV to make a deal in good conscience.
Comcast owns Versus and it is my understanding they receive 18 cents per month per subscriber from DTV.
I’m gonna guess that 40% of the DTV subscribers has Versus in their package.
40% of DTV subscribers is about 10 million viewers x .18 = $1.8 million per month to Comcast (just for Versus)
Think about it, if DTV is paying 18 cents per viewer to Comcast and they want to double the rate, DTV only needs to raise the cost of the package 18 stinking cents. Big deal, it goes up a quarter of a dollar.
However, if DTV gets greedy after submitting to the Comcast rate increase, they could move Versus into an exclusive sports package that costs $20 a month more.
The latter would be screwing their subscribers, the first solution just passes the real cost on to us which would be the ethical thing to do.
I hope DTV does not…
(1) fail to make the deal with Comcast.
(2) become the villain while claiming to be the victim!
Many of you may not realize it but the PBR has many hundreds of thousands of fans whom would drop Direct TV in an instant to follow the PBR on Versus to wherever they may land if a deal is not worked out.
Even if only a small percentage, lets say 5,000 viewers dropped their subscriptions, that would be a monthly loss of at least $300,000 and an annual loss of $3.6 million. I can guarantee you that more than 5,000 PBR fans would drop Direct TV if they drop Versus.
If DirectTV drops Versus I am going to drop DirectTV.
If Directv doesn’t have Versus for this coming NHL season I’ll be getting cable or satellite service from another source.
The reason I chose satellite was because they carried what was OLN and is now Versus (local cable company did not carry OLN) for the cycling shows. If Direct TV drops Versus, I guess I will be moving to Dish Network.
Directv is not wanting to drop Versus. Comcast is asking for a significantly larger amount of money to extend their contract with Directv that they are from other companies. So in saying that if Directv were to agree to the amount that Comcast is asking of them, then it would be safe to assume the “savings” would be passed on to the customers in the form of raising the price of their base packages.