Pass Off
Bresnan‘s movement this week of NFL Net off its digital basic tier in Gillette, WY, and to a new area sports tier completes a round of swapping that kicked off last year in all of the MSO’s markets. Counting Comcast as an investor, Bresnan receives much of its programming through the nation’s largest cable op, essentially piggy-backing on certain carriage deals. So when Comcast began moving NFL Net to a sports tier in May, so did Bresnan. Comcast also owns a piece of Midcontinent and US Cable, and provides programming to them as well. Calls to Midcontinent weren’t returned by deadline, but the MSO’s Website shows it offers NFL Net on a sports tier. All this means that NFL Net’s well-publicized spat with Comcast over tier carriage affects additional subs. It’s difficult to decipher just how many, but Bresnan, Midcontinent and US Cable collectively service more than 500K customers—a small amount relative to Comcast’s crowded sub stable but nonetheless representative of the primary disagreement between the net and cable ops. NFL Net failed to respond to inquiries by deadline. Meanwhile, as Cox carries it on a tier as well, the net continues to refuse offers from ops such as Time Warner Cable and Cablevision that fail to include non-tier placement.