By John Ourand, Staff Writer
Nearly a year before its planned launch, the Big Ten Channel scored its second national carriage deal when it agreed to terms with AT&T, sources said. In the next few weeks, the telephone company plans to announce that it will carry the Big Ten Channel when it launches next August on its U-verse digital video service. Even though AT&T’s U-verse has only a handful of subscribers, the deal is a significant one for the channel, which is a joint venture between The Big Ten and Fox Cable Networks. The AT&T agreement marks its first deal with a distributor not affiliated with News Corp. So far, only News Corp.-owned DirecTV has agreed to carry the channel on its Total Choice package, which has 15.4 million subscribers. Conference officials hope the deal will put pressure on cable operators to begin carrying the service. So far, AT&T has launched U-verse in San Antonio and expects to launch in parts of Houston soon. It hopes to launch in up to 20 markets by the end of the year and plans to be available to 19 million homes by the end of next year.
