ESPN is distributed in 99.1 million U.S. homes to start '12, down slightly from the start of last year and ranked 10th among all cable TV nets. The Weather Channel leads all nets with 100 million homes, followed by TBS with 99.98 million. The start of last year had eight cable nets in over 100 million homes; January '12 sees only one net with that level of distribution. Among sports nets, ESPN2 is also slightly below its level at the start of '11, while ESPNU and ESPNews are up. The league-owned networks are also up from the start of '11. Listed below are U.S. distribution figures for the top 10 nets, as well as figures for nets with a heavy dose of sports content (THE DAILY).

NOTES: Figures not available for nets that do not subscribe to regular Nielsen ratings, including NHL Network, Universal Sports, Tennis Channel, Fox College Sports, Big Ten Network, Longhorn Network and CBS Sports Network. * = Formerly Versus.

CORRECTION: Wednesday’s issue of THE DAILY should have noted that NBA TV has no year-over-year comparison for primetime and total-day viewership as the net only became rated in October ’10. THE DAILY regrets the error.