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John Ourand
Staff writer John Ourand covers television and media.
Three trends from the upfront season Kroenke comfortable wearing 2nd hat From the Field of Risk Management Plaintiff seeks documents from FSG Demos key to Microsoft’s MLS deal People: Executive transactions Reinsdorf values people he knows, trusts Racetracks attract music festivals For the WNBA, time for a clutch 3 Super Bowl’s numerals: Still a classic
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Doing it ‘Wimbledon-style’: ESPN, USTA reach 11-year, $825M deal for U.S. Open05 / 20 / 13Surrounded by reporters after ESPN’s upfront advertising event in New York last week, ESPN President John Skipper was asked to comment on the SportsBusiness Daily report that he was close to doing a deal to bring the entire U.S. Open tennis tournament to cable. Skipper smiled and said, &ldq... Tags: Media |
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Deal would put AFL games on NFL Network
A likely deal that would put AFL games on the NFL Network on Friday nights is in the works, however executives say the would-be partners still are battling over revenue splits and share of production costs. “We know arena football isn’t something that is going to make a big cable operator s ...
Tags: This Week's News
Turner giving NASCAR.com social networking boost
In an attempt to increase NASCAR ratings next season, ESPN and Turner separately are planning to surround NASCAR programming with a multiplatform approach popularized during ESPN’s coverage of “Monday Night Football” this season. The relaunched site will appeal to th ...
Tags: NASCAR, This Week's News
NFL’s TV changes pay off
When the NFL was negotiating its TV contracts in 2005, the league’s media mind, Steve Bornstein, did not play it safe. Instead, he moved chess pieces along the league’s television landscape and changed the packages. So far, the results have been an unqualified success. C ...
Tags: This Week's News
DirecTV-only MLB package?
DirecTV is in advanced talks with Major League Baseball about acquiring exclusive access to baseball’s out-of-market Extra Innings package, a move that could be a huge blow to the cable industry and one that will certainly grab attention on Capitol Hill. Sources from both the league and th ...
Tags: This Week's News
Sports tier will work out for NBA TV, Stern says
Bashing digital sports tiers is in vogue among programmers today, but the service has at least one fan in NBA Commissioner David Stern — even though his NBA TV has been languishing on cable’s digital sports tiers since its launch in 1999. “I use the term idling,” Stern said, referring to N ...
Tags: This Week's News
Digital issues slow NBA’s TV talks
Negotiations on the NBA’s next television rights package are moving forward at a glacial pace, but the talks have remained cordial and all sides believe that ESPN and TNT will wind up renewing their deals at some point over the next year. Longtime NBA broadcaster TNT is e ...
Tags: This Week's News
After post-lockout bounce, NHL ratings slip
As more than a dozen patrons at the Station Grill in Washington, D.C., picked over french fries and drank beer on Dec. 11, images of the Chicago Bears and St. Louis Rams “Monday Night Football” game played on the television behind the bar. Just seven blocks away, the Washington Capitals we ...
Tags: This Week's News
Super Bowl sales on track for CBS, but is the ‘ad meter’ effect s ...
CBS’s Super Bowl ad sales are solid this year, tracking similar to ABC’s performance last year. But network executives and ad buyers are beginning to wonder if the growth of Super Bowl ad rates are being stifled by USA Today’s Super Bowl ad meter. They point to the newspaper’s influential a ...
Tags: This Week's News
ESPN 360 x 2: AT&T rollout doubles distribution to 15M homes
AT&T rolled out ESPN’s broadband channel, ESPN 360, to nearly 8 million of its high-speed data customers last week — a move that doubles the fledgling service’s distribution to 15 million homes. ESPN 360 is ESPN's broadband video channel The deal is import ...
Tags: This Week's News
FSN regionals sign clubs despite talk of selling 3 RSNs
When FSN North signs a long-term renewal deal for the Milwaukee Bucks this week, it will mark the fifth such deal FSN’s stable of regional sports networks has signed in recent weeks. The spate of deals underscored FSN’s commitment to its RSNs — a commitment that was questioned when word bro ...
Tags: This Week's News
