Altitude Sports & Entertainment Nears DirecTV Carriage Deal

Altitude Sports & Entertainment has entered into a carriage deal with DirecTV, leaving Comcast “as the only big TV provider locally not carrying the fledgling network,” according to Jason Blevins of the DENVER POST. Comcast is the state’s largest cable provider with 680,000 subscribers, while DirecTV and Dish Network – which already has a carriage deal with Altitude – have a combined 459,000 satellite subscribers in Colorado. Industry observers suggested that Comcast probably wants “a discounted rate that considers a season without” the NHL. Broadcasting & Cable Deputy Editor John Higgins: “I guarantee that conversation has occurred.” Higgins noted that Comcast “would have to charge customers an extra $4 per month” in order to generate the revenues needed to cover the $2 per subscriber per month cost of hosting a network and meet its operating cash-flow margin. Higgins: “They don’t want to pay the money, and they don’t want to add another network. There’s a limit to how much you can recover from your subscribers when you add these $2-a-month networks” (DENVER POST, 10/29).