5Qs with NFL Net COO Kim Williams

Happy birthday. Is this where you thought NFL Net would be in 3 years—there are still several cable operators who don’t have deals? It’s been a great 3 years across the board. Programming-wise, we feel really proud about what’s on screen. I think from a subscriber standpoint, we’re pleased about where we are. Our interests are to make sure that what is some of the most popular content out there is as broadly distributed as possible. What are some goals for the coming year? From a programming standpoint, enhancing what we’ve already got. Broadening college coverage, more of the kinds of experiments we’re doing with NFL Replay. On the distribution side, we’ll continue to be a good partner to the cable industry by helping them grow the business. But we’re not going to do that by limiting customers’ access to the content. What’s going to happen if Comcast follows through with plans to move NFL Net to a digital sports tier as of Jan 1? We feel pretty strongly that they don’t have the right to do that. We will stand by our position and fight that fairly vigorously. What’s NFL Network going to bring to these regular season games that’s different? We’ll be taking a lot of what’s great about NFL Films—whether it’s the camera angles, sound, perspective. You’ll see a lot of additional content in game broadcasts that enhances the experience, but we’re not going to forget that people are tuning in to see the games. How are things going in getting existing affiliates to commit to a surcharge for those games? As well as expected. There are many that see the value and sign up immediately, and others who have to make their business models work. It’s a mixed bag. Nothing that’s unexpected. We would like to see cable operators embrace the network a bit more readily. We’re not going away.