Carriage talks between a fledgling golf lifestyle channel and Time Warner Cable stalled once Comcast offered to buy the New York cable company, a Senate panel was told Wednesday.
Needing a deal with TWC or one of three other large pay-TV providers in order to launch, the channel will — since the $45 billion offer from Comcast, which owns The Golf Channel, the only rival in the space — have a much more “difficult” time getting out of the gate, James Bosworth, CEO of Back9Network, told the lawmakers.
“Time Warner Cable, from the CEO and programming people, couldn’t have been more constructive” early on in the talks, Bosworth testified. “As soon as this [acquisition] was announced, that softened quite a bit. Since it [the acquisition] was announced, it’s become more difficult.”
Comcast countered that a meeting with Bosworth had been scheduled ahead of the hearing.
The issue of Comcast’s growth into a 33 million-subscriber cable behemoth — after the TWC acquisition — included talk of its effect on sports programming.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.) asked Comcast about its 10 regional sports networks — sports networks are seen by many inside and outside the company as key drivers of increased cable costs.
TWC, which owns one regional sports network, is charging as much as $4.50 to $5 per subscriber per month for its Los Angeles sports network, which carries Dodgers games.
“Comcast and Time Warner Cable combined would own a formidable amount of local sports programming,” Blumenthal said, noting that consumers can’t opt to drop a very expensive TV genre.