NFL Network’s Steve Bornstein Featured In Newsday Q&A
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Steve Bornstein Happy With NFL
Network’s Distribution To Date |
In a Q&A with NEWSDAY’s Neil Best, NFL Network President & CEO and NFL Exec VP/New
Media Steve Bornstein said of the network, “I’m very pleased with the distribution
we’ve gotten to date. And more importantly, I think the consumers are happy with
it. The ratings have exceeded our expectations, we’re having a good dialogue with
our non-carriers right now, and we’re having an even better dialogue with the
guys who are carrying us. They like the product.” More Bornstein, on the net’s
distribution: “I go back to the early days of ESPN when we were in 1 ½ million
homes and everybody said it was insignificant. ... It took ESPN I think eight
years to get to 30 million homes. We got to 40 in three years. ... I didn’t think
we’d be in 40 million homes for five or six years.”
OWNERSHIP: When asked how much not being owned by a cable company or big
media company hurts in getting distribution, Bornstein said, “We’re an independent
programmer in a business that has a lot of integration issues. There are lots
of currencies going on between big distributors and big programmers. We’re not
without some of our own, but we’re not in the media business. The independent
guy suffers a little from that, but I don’t need any benefits thrown for the NFL.”
Bornstein added “we don’t have any interest” in selling a piece of NFL Network
as MLB did in its deals with DirecTV, Comcast and Time Warner.
FRIEND OR FOE? Bornstein, when asked whether NFL Network is a “competitor
of ESPN or a partner,” said, “To the degree we all eat, yeah, we all are competing.
But we look at ourselves as a complement to our partners. I promote [‘MNF’]. I
promote [‘SNF’]. I promote football. I want ESPN to cover the draft. So to the
degree we promote the sport that all of my four partners have made a major investment
in, it’s good news and that’s complementary and not in opposition” (NEWSDAY.com,
5/3).
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