First Once Bites the Dust

It didn’t take long. While just a few shows have been on for approximately two weeks, for most series we are only in the first official week of the new television season. Some series aren’t even debuting until October.

And we now have our first casualty.

After to airings to dismal ratings FOX’s Nashville has been pulled. This reality-soap, in the same vein as Laguna Beach and the Hills, just didn’t earn enough of an audience on Friday nights to warrant a longer run.

The network has said that Nashville will return at a later time. But that will be to just burn off old episodes. But that’s the end of it. Once pulled like this it’s 99% sure that Nashville is heading to official cancellation.

Big Ten vs. Comcast

Last winter I wrote about the Big Ten Network, and how it appeared at the time ESPN was dealing with losing some of the broadcast rights to various events. (To read that post, click here.) But now another controversy has exploded with the Big Ten Network and Comcast, the nation’s largest cable service provider.

The Big Ten Network premiered on August 30th. But it still hasn’t received clearance onto Comcast. The two sides are disagreeing on where to place the channel in Comcast’s cable service. The Big Ten Network would like to see their channel placed on basic or expanded basic cable, so that the largest number of subscribers possible would have access. Comcast would like to place the network onto an upper-tier sports package so that only those cable subscribers that purchase that package can see it. And neither side will budge. Comcast says that the reason for this placement is so that subscribers that don’t want to pay for this network won’t have to.

The fees that cable providers pay to networks are an interesting phenomenon. Your cable service provider pays a fee to each and every cable network to be able to have it on their service. It could be as little as a few cents or as much as a couple of dollars per cable subscriber. The more popular the network the more they are able to charge because there is demand for it. I’m certain that networks such as MTV, ESPN, and CNN charge much higher fees per subscriber than do the American Life Network, Logo, or the National Geographic Channel. However, as the channels gain popularity they can increase how much they charge the service providers.

Though I can not find any precise numbers, my guess is one of the sticking points between the two sides is how much the Big Ten Network is asking for. They believe that they have a guaranteed audience and are probably asking for more per subscriber than the typical upstart cable network. Comcast isn’t willing to pay that amount for every subscriber they have, so they want to place it on an upper-tier channel so that they only have to pay the Big Ten Network for every subscriber that purchases that package of channels.

But it’s gotten ugly. Now that I live in Delaware I have Comcast digital cable. And I’ve started to see advertisements from Comcast about the situation. And they are taking the tone of negative political advertising. Take a look at this commercial that I was able to find on YouTube.



Wow. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. I’m sure we’ll see similar imagery this winter and spring, after the presidential primaries, when the political advertisements for the candidates running for president start.

But the problem is that Comcast is leaving something out. They may be featuring “thousands of hours” of Big Ten sports, but there are thousands more that will be on the Big Ten Network that we won’t see. When you’re talking football you will see powerhouses such as Ohio State in your programming, but how likely are you to see an Indiana University game? Not likely unless they’re playing a powerhouse. And what about basketball? There are so many games played each season, and a majority of those will not be seen by those who are serviced by the nation’s largest cable provider. Games that used to be broadcast by ESPN Plus and therefore on local stations will not be there this year. Homes in Indiana will not be able to see home IU basketball games on their TVs. And what about some of the sports that the major networks never air, like swimming and softball? Shouldn’t they have a platform too?

I’m not sure what the solution is. If the Big Ten Network drops their fees, then maybe Comcast will place it so that everyone can have access to it. Or if Comcast won’t budge then the Big Ten Network will have to accept the fact that only special subscribers can see their programming.

All I know is that here in Delaware I could have seen IU football’s season opener thanks to this network, but my cable service provider couldn’t come to terms and therefore I missed out. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Let the Bidding Begin

This semester I am teaching a course about Sports and the Media. We will spend a couple of days covering one of my favorite topics, the Olympics.

Very recently the International Olympic Committee announced Sochi, Russia as the host city for the 2014 Winter Games. But now they must turn their attention to the bidding process for the 2016 Summer Games. It is a long process, and a final decision will not be reached until October 2, 2009 at the IOC's meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Right now it appears that there are seven cities that are definitely preparing to submit their bids. (Monterrey, Mexico would have made eight, but the Mexican National Olympic Committee rejected their proposal just yesterday.) Today is the final day for these bids to be submitted.

As it stands right now, the cities definitely vying for the 2016 Olympic Games are:

Baku, Azerbaijan

Chicago, USA

Doha, Qatar

Madrid, Spain

Prague, Czech Republic

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Tokyo, Japan

It will be an interesting race to see which city secures the right to host the games. And it’s hard to make the call at this point. All of these locations have advantages and disadvantages, which will become apparent as the process progresses.

One factor that could influence where the Games will be held is where the Games before it were held. Here’s a list of recent and future host cities.

2004 Summer Games – Athens, Greece

2006 Winter Games – Torino, Italy

2008 Summer Games – Beijing, China

2010 Winter Games – Vancouver, Canada

2012 Summer Games – London, England

2014 Winter Games – Sochi, Russia

I believe having the 2012 games in London will have an impact on Madrid and Prague’s bids. And while the U.S. hasn’t held a Games since the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, I am not certain that Chicago was the best choice for the U.S. bid.

I believe that, just on face value without knowing much about what their bids look like, the cities with the best chances are Baku, Doha, and Rio de Janeiro. All three are in areas of the world that have never hosted an Olympics before, which the IOC may see as a plus. My money at this point is on Doha. I believe that Qatar is building the infrastructure necessary to host major sporting events such as this one and can be an effective host.

One To Go

Anyone who has come to this site over the past couple of months knows that I've been trying to get blog hits from all 50 states and Washington D.C. And I've nearly succeeded.

Since the last time I posted about this topic I had someone come to my blog from Nevada looking for information about the upcoming season of Law & Order.

That now leaves me with Mississippi. I wonder what I could post that could get someone who lives there to visit this blog. Anyone have a suggestion?

And once I conquer the U.S. it's on to the world. I'm already at 55 countries and counting, thanks to the recent hit from the island nation of Mauritius.

A Walk Down Memory Lane Through Cartoons

I was searching for some video this weekend on YouTube. Specifically I was looking for propaganda cartoons from World War I or World War II. I found some interesting ones from World War II featuring Daffy Duck and Superman. (Click on the character and you can see what I found.) But I also found a piece of video that made me feel very nostalgic.

I’m 33 years old, soon to be 34, and am very much a child of the 80s. I love 80s music, have a lot of favorite movies from the 80s, and miss a lot of the TV programs that aired during the 80s. I especially miss the cartoons of that era. From widely popular shows G.I. Joe, Pac-Man, Thundercats, and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe to the lesser known cartoons like Danger Mouse, M.A.S.K., Jem, and Captain Planet and the Planeteers, I loved nearly every one that I saw. So imagine my surprise when in my YouTube search I found that someone had placed a variety of video montages featuring back-to-back-to-back opening sequences of 1980s cartoon series. I was in heaven over this find and have watched it more than once. And imagine my surprise when I rediscovered a few shows that I had forgotten about and even a couple that I never have seen before.

I now want to share these videos with you, and hope you find some of the same enjoyment that I did. And I also hope you agree that the just don’t make great cartoons for kids like this anymore.

Belated Anniversary

I can’t believe I let an anniversary go by. August 28th marked the two year mark for this blog.

Then again, August 28th was also my first day of teaching here at the University of Delaware. So I guess it’s not surprising that I let that slip my mind.

Thanks to everyone who comes here regularly. (I may not know exactly who you are, but I do know where you are.) And I’m sorry to those who are disappointed that I don’t post more.