Quote:
Originally Posted by Klinglerware
I was under the impression that the rates are determined in part by pre-estimating GRP/TRP. B10 probably gets next to nothing now, since they are not on Basic Cable. If they can get on Basic, the B10 can make the argument that the GRPs will go from nothing to something (as meager as it would be) and may try to justify a rate increase that way.
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First there's an assumption that they would be moved to basic, which is at least a bit of a leap, even in St. Louis they weren't added to basic when an agreement was reached last year (or not according to the press release I found while looking for the NYC info). And in the NY DMA there are at least three separate agreements that would have to be reached, Cablevision + TW + Comcrap.
Next we don't know (or at least I don't) what the existing number of actual subscribing households is now versus what it would become. Basically the
available households number wouldn't change even if they moved, it's available now, just presumably not widely bought. I did find this figure quoted on the B10N website:
The network currently reaches approximately 40 million households nationwide and is available to up an estimated 73 million households in the United States and Canada. That leads me to believe that the likely difference in households "reached" with a shift to basic would be somewhere in the 3 million range, with extremely low ratings making the change in their actual total audience pretty small & not likely to be enough to justify any significant rate increase.
What you're talking about is more applicable to upfront sales and I'm not at all sure how much a niche network like B10N is doing at upfront versus more graduated buys and given the overall weakness of college sports in the northeast (TV-wise, not talking about teams/performance here) I just don't see even New York being the sort of boost we would normally associate with even a major shift there. The bigger hurdle was cleared when they got any sort of carriage at all.
I guess my point is that while the TV market is something everyone talks about, I suspect there are other factors actually more influential on the whatever decision the conference eventually makes.