Thursday, September 13, 2007

Big 10 Still Could Be Coming to Cox

Cox Communications apparently has not closed the door on adding the Big 10 Network to their lineup. The channel features sports from the Big 10 conference 24 hours a day. Fans of the Iowa Hawkeyes – especially their football program – obviously would enjoy the addition, as the University of Iowa is a member of the Big 10.

However, none of the 208,000 households that subscribe to Cox’s service are seeing the Big 10 Network. But they still could.

“We haven’t decided not to yet. We’re still negotiating that,” said Summer Miller Widhalm, public relations manager at Cox in Omaha.

“The reason the Big 10 important is because of Iowa, and we serve Iowa. But only one of the first four Hawkeye games was even on the Big 10 Network, and most of the big games are on carried on other networks. So it doesn’t make sense for us to charge our customers for a network when all of the key games are actually on other networks. You might have one or two that are really important, but overall we’re not going to give our customers a very good value if we pay for that and then it’s only a couple of games that are actually valuable for them.”

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for throwing us a bone Jim.

Anonymous said...

Something is seriously wrong here...it actually sounds like Cox cares how much they jack up a customer's bill

Anonymous said...

How about Time Warner cable? Of course not. They don't give us the NFL Network, why would they do this?

Anonymous said...

The Big 10 Network needs to fail. If the Big 10 network is successful in getting cable companies to pick them up and give them money, the Big 12 Network (and all the other conferences) is right around the corner.

Anonymous said...

September 13, 2007 10:46 AM said: "Something is seriously wrong here...it actually sounds like Cox cares how much they jack up a customer's bill"

What rock have you been hiding under? Cox has a history of trying to keep its programming costs down.

For example:

Cox wouldn't pay outrageous fees for KMTV's HD signal a few years ago. Awhile back KETV pulled its HD signal from Cox because Cox won't pay big bucks for something everyone can get with rabbit ears... now KETV is threatening to pull its analog signal from Cox right at the beginning of football season to prod Cox to settle and pay them big bucks.

Several years ago Cox dropped Bravo for what - a year or two - because Bravo was asking too much.

Anonymous said...

Someone could have some real fun with having "Big 10" and Cox in the same headline.

Anonymous said...

I'll stick with Qwest.

Anonymous said...

Cox vs. the local station's corporate owners is like Big Pharma vs. Insurance...Godzilla vs. Megalon...you get the idea.

Cox dropped Turner Classic Movies several years ago because TCM would not let Cox make money and run commercials. It was viewer outcry (and Cox's idiotic notion that American Movie Classics was comparable to TCM), not Cox's concern for the viewer's pocketbook that brought TCM back.

Cox will duke it out with any vendor and the customer will always pick up the tab. No matter how this KETV thing shakes out, watch your cable bill go up some more.

Anonymous said...

Heh heh. You said "Big 10" and "Cox".


Beavis

Anonymous said...

Where were y'all back when Cox branded its internet service "Cox@Home"? Hmm... sounds like a B-grade gay porno to me...

Anonymous said...

Heck, now people can have Cox everywhere!!

Anonymous said...

You forgot "coming" to add with your scandalous "big 10" and "cox". Hee Hee.

Anonymous said...

The Cox CSR is wrong. The first 3 Iowa games were all on Big Ten Network. I had to watch them on Direct TV at a friends house. Maybe DTV is a better option.