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In terms of breaking news items in media, the one that THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’s veteran sports and media expert Joe Flint dropped late Wednesday diminished in importance as Thursday’s headlines unfolded. The official announcement of a sale of a media empire that of late has become a symbol for the very existence of democracy and the deaths of a couple of more transcendent artists–one of which has prompted a great deal of pause for people conflicted about actually mourning them–are undoubtedly more capable of generating clicks and engagement that this. But I suspect those stories won’t immediately die, and we’ll have ample opportunity to muse about them at some not-too-far off future date, assuming my ever-churning stomach settles long enough to allow me to collect those thoughts.
Meanwhile, Flint let us in on some brainstorming that has been going on in the ever-evolving world of NBCUniversal. Even as they are actively siloing off a bunch of cable networks of which many have become de facto zombie networks, they’re actually considering starting up a new one in the camp which today just Bravo survives within. And ironically, a prevalent thought involves resurrecting one that actually had died.
NBCUniversal is discussing launching a sports cable network that could debut as early as the fall, people familiar with the matter said.
The channel would primarily carry sports that are also streamed on NBCU’s Peacock platform. The network would be offered to cable and satellite distributors as part of specialty packages of similar channels, the people said.
Discussions are still in early stages, and a final decision on the network has yet to be made, according to the people.
The talks are surprising because NBCU, like some other traditional media companies, has been grappling with viewers cutting the cord to cable and turning to streaming services.
And in this case, it’s especially surprising when Flint reminded his readers how familiar this turf actually is:
NBC previously operated a sports network but shut it down in 2021 because its ratings were small and it wasn’t competitive with ESPN. The few marquee events it did carry migrated to the USA Network, which will be part of Versant.
This topic should be familiar to our readers as well, as we chronicled part of that network’s history a bit more than a year ago in concert with the evolving discussions about the eventually aborted Venu effort that NBCU was a champion of:
When I see a mission statement like this I can’t help but recall the one that accompanied another sports smashup beginning with V that was supposed to remake the landscape. Larry Stewart, the longtime TV sports guru of what was once the Los Angeles TIMES, reported on that back in September 2006:
“Hey, did you see that game on Versus last night?” The executives at Comcast-owned OLN hope someday it does. Today the test begins as the name changes.
The cable channel that began in 1995 as the Outdoor Life Network — mainly fishing and hunting — and only last July changed to OLN as it picked up the National Hockey League and went indoors, officially has become Versus.
“It has a range that can suit everything from stick and ball sports to bull riding to field sports,” said network president Gavin Harvey. “Versus captures the essence of our brand,” Harvey said. “We felt it was a slam dunk, and sports fans we talked to all agreed.” Harvey, a UCLA business school graduate who became network president in 2004, said creative director Michael Magnotta came up with the name last October. Focus groups were conducted and Versus was approved in April.
You do recall what happened to Versus. It ultimately morphed into NBC Sports Network and, at the end of 2021, morphed into history.
But to be fair, that channel was a full-blood effort to knock off the Worldwide Leader that was never quite able to cobble enough significant franchises to be even a threat to FOX for a distant second in that race. This one seems to be more strategic and modest, as a good friend of ours helped to clarify:
NBCU, which is owned by Comcast CMCSA -1.17%decrease; red down pointing triangle, is making a big push into sports programming with a new deal carrying NBA basketball. NBCU is spending about $2.5 billion annually for its NBA package, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported. Starting in the fall, NBCU planned to show games on both the NBC broadcast network and Peacock. NBCU is hoping the addition of the NBA will boost subscriptions to Peacock, which lags behind other streaming services. Comcast said on its last earnings call that the service had 41 million subscribers.
To protect Peacock, the people familiar with the discussions said, NBCU wouldn’t make the channel available in the big broad channel packages that typically include networks with sports such as Disney’s ESPN and Fox Corp.’s Fox Sports 1. Instead, it would only offer the channel through specific cable packages. Cable and satellite operators such as Charter’s Spectrum and DirecTV have started offering so-called genre packages to give subscribers more choice and financial flexibility in what networks they receive.
The potential channel is “not going to hurt Peacock, it’s a pay-TV product for people who are stubborn about leaving the bundle,” said Patrick Crakes, a sports media consultant. Crakes added it is hard to make money on sports solely via streaming.
And it’s also about making sure that these events–especially the handful of bigger ticket items that will be Peacock’s most alluring feathers–get seen by enough eyeballs to assure the entities that make their bed with a less penetrated effort haven’t completely compromised their goal of reaching enough fans who like to buy merch and occasionally can afford tickets to live events. I saw this very point played out when The Tennis Channel, perpetually relegated to those “specific” tiers by MVPDs loathe to pay them to their asking price were forced into a position of making the channel available for free to the full breadth of those subsciber bases in order to secure rights to Grand Slam tournaments. It allowed their universe for those bigger ticket matches to be at a barely acceptable 55 million versus the 25-30 million which the channel was usually available to. And with Peacock’s reach not much further along at this point, one suspects that the likes of NBA commissioner Adam Silver may have voiced such concern, $2.5B in his pocket or not.
All of this is making a few observers with less nuance than Crakes to take a few potshots. AWFUL ANNOUNCING’s Drew Lerner weighed in with his eyerolling observations yesterday:
I don’t think a day goes by where we here at Awful Announcing don’t talk about cord-cutting and the end of cable television. So why in the world would NBC think it’s a good idea to debut a new cable network in 2025? One word: panic.
Should NBC actually go forward and launch the channel, they’ll be admitting to some level of buyer’s remorse on the NBA deal. $2.45 billion is more than the network pays the NFL for Sunday Night Football, the highest rated primetime show in all of television. The NBA as a property is largely unproven in how much it can drive subscriptions to streaming services. And frankly, it might drive a lot fewer than NBC originally anticipated when it signed its deal last year.
And THE ANKLER’s Sean McNulty mused in yesterday’s Wakeup that the fact NBCU seems more willing to embrace this reboot rather than the remnants of what preceded it has his Jersey shore-impacted huevos in a bit of a state of coniption:
(W)hy NBCU doesn’t just air the PEACOCK games on one of the zombie cable TV channels they’re throwing away spinning off in VERSANT, like USA NETWORK — which already airs many PREMIER LEAGUE ⚽️ matches — vs. investing all of that time and money to launch a new cable TV network in 2025 . . . is a bit beyond me.
- Yes, I know USA NETWORK will be in a different company next year, but COMCAST shareholders will own all of the stock in it, and NBCU is running the ad sales for all VERSANT nets for at least 2 years . . . making for a seamless effort on behalf of NBCU/NBC SPORTS.
And as my Tennis Channel buds learned the while their holy grail might be to create enough appetite for some gold card targets to eventually subscribe to their golden child offering the suppliers’ priority is audience for their events one way or the other. In an ad-supported world, even those merely passing through in the revolving door of viewership count so long as Nielsen is capable of measuring them (yet again, a story for another day).
Perhaps their reluctance to do that might be driven by the fact they haven’t quite figured out what to call this just yet. NBCSN is too recent a failure to remind people about, a point McNulty giddily taunts when he snarkily asked:
(🙋♂️ anyone still have the zip drive with the graphics package on it?).
Versus is a bit more of a distant memory, and as our attempt to salvage as much clickbait as possible today attempted to do such a move would indeed have a connection to the Versant portfolio. Besides, it would perhaps save them the trouble of physically creating another network, as it appears at least of those zombie networks had another stake driven through its heart yesterday. As VARIETY’s Ethan Shanfeld mournfully reported yesterday:
“E! News” has been canceled – again. The celebrity-focused newscast will continue airing new episodes until Sept. 25 on E!…The decision to cancel the show is said to have come from the E! network, as it looks to leverage its brand of entertainment coverage and commentary across digital and social platforms.. the linear network,,,ontinues to air original series including “Botched Presents: Plastic Surgery Rewind” and “Honestly Cavallari: The Headline Tour.” It recently announced upcoming series “Kimora: Back in the Fab Lane” and “E!’s Dirty Rotten Scandals.”
Sorry, I’m even less excited about the chances for an array of quality content like that being a driver for viewers, let alone subscribers, than I am about Premier League soccer and regular season WNBA games. Which is why I’ve had E! on my death watch list for a while now, especially as it will no longer be joined at the hip with the similarly skewing Bravo. And do remember NBCSN itself evolved from the ashes of a network once dedicated to something quite different as well. So there is precedence.
On the other hand, maybe I’m borrowing too much of the snark of McNulty and Lerner for my own good in prematurely burying the entire network. After all, you can’t spell Versant with an E, either.
Courage…