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Time Warner Cable customers get ESPN3 in new deal

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Thursday, September 2, 2010

(Updated Friday, September 3 - 8:01 am)

By
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Time Warner Cable Inc. customers will finally get access to the sports website ESPN3.com, even if they are not subscribers of the company's Internet service, according to a long-term deal with The Walt Disney Co. announced Thursday.

In the deal, 12.7 million Time Warner video subscribers and 2.4 million Bright House Networks video subscribers will get access to ESPN3.com without an extra charge. ESPN3.com offers full game videos, and recently it carried live World Cup matches that built huge audiences via computer screens in the workplace. About 7.4 million people tuned in to ESPN3.com at one point during the tournament, on average watching two hours each.

Time Warner Cable and Bright House had long been holdouts on ESPN3.com, which has been around in different forms since 2001. They said Disney's pattern of tying fees to the number of Internet subscribers was inappropriate, since not all its Internet customers wanted to pay extra to access a single website.

In conceding the deal terms on ESPN3.com, in exchange Disney cut its most extensive deal ever with the companies. They had not renegotiated since 2000, only agreeing to a three-year extension in 2007.

Among the expanded offerings, Time Warner is launching a new college football channel called "ESPN Goal Line" that gives fans a live peek at games around the nation on Saturdays, a similar offering to the NFL Network's "NFL RedZone." The first program starts Saturday for sports tier subscribers. A similar service called "ESPN Buzzer Beater" will be offered for the college basketball season in January.

Disney also won cash payment for granting Time Warner Cable the right to retransmit signals from four ABC stations and also secured carriage of a new 24-hour channel called Disney Junior, a rebranding of its SOAPnet channel, when it launches in 2012.

Carriage of other channels such as Disney Channel, ABC Family, Disney XD and ESPN 3D was included in the wide-ranging agreement.

The deal came after the companies indicated Sunday that there wouldn't be a damaging signal interruption of the kind that cut several minutes off of ABC's Oscar telecast to millions of Cablevision subscribers in a fee dispute in March.

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jandrew28

September 2, 2010 - 2:34 pm EDT

TWC, as if your poor service in this area wasn't reason enough to leave, if I lose ESPN I really won't need your services at all. I know I am but one person, but I bet there are several others out there that would agree. Why you’re at it, don't forget to include ESPN3.com, it's pretty lame that you won't let your internet users access all of the services available on that site.

drstrangelove

September 2, 2010 - 10:01 pm EDT

jandrew28 -- Hel-LO did u even read the article? The companies reached an agreement, which will keep ESPN on the air AND includes ESPN3, even to video only (not just RR) subscribers. So exactly what is your rant about?

jandrew28

September 2, 2010 - 10:11 pm EDT

drstrangelove - my post was at 2:30, the article was updated at 8:30. Leave it to the N&R, it wasn't updated, it was rewritten. At 2:30, the original article talked about how they were past the deadline and they were still negotiating.

holland4

September 2, 2010 - 11:06 pm EDT

Based upon articles I've read this evening, you must be a TWC video subscriber who already receives ESPN in order to access ESPN3.com. In other words, if you only get TWC broadband internet service and get your video elsewhere, e.g., satellite, you're out of luck when it comes to ESPN3.com. If you subscribe to TWC's video and get your broadband access through another provider, you will still be allowed to access ESPN3.com.

This is a ridiculous situation, but Time Warner negotiated this deal to prevent losing video subscribers. If this turns out to be the case, I'm jumping ship to AT&T FastAccess 6.0. I have TWC's Road Runner Turbo (for $67.90 per month!) and I'm lucky if I get 6 Mbps download speeds anyway. And don't even get me started about their pathetic upload speeds.

I've never seen a company have as much disdain for its customers as TWC.

JoeVoter

September 3, 2010 - 12:09 am EDT

I could care less about ESPN3. However, I do want to know when Time-Warner is going to adhere to the arbitrations and their appeals that Time-Warner has lost regarding providing access to Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN). It is time for Time-Warner to do what is right - provide access to MASN - as arbitrated.

laserguidedloogie

September 3, 2010 - 1:09 am EDT

Woo hoo!

Yet another Bread and Circuses channel !

I only regret that I have but one lifetime to waste in front of my TV.

Ken
Laser Guided Loogie

In My Opinion

September 3, 2010 - 8:44 am EDT

A useful bit of information that has been left out of this article...when do we begin getting this access? Soon? Or is this something that doesn't kick in until 2011? It sure would have been helpful last night for those of us that would have liked to see the Wake Forest game...it was only available on ESPN3.com. Of course, I could have listened to the radio broadcast if I was willing to pay CBS $10.

TheyCallMePro

September 3, 2010 - 2:15 pm EDT

Exactly. Tommarow is Saturday and there are a TON of college football games only on ESPN3.com. If they say we have it, then WHY DONT WE!? I was about to drop them if they did'nt get ESPN3 for college football, and now that they do I'll keep them. But Why dont we have access!? I cant find the answer, I've been searching the web with no results. Its so frustrating. Cmon TWC you better have it by tommarow! Already missing Temple vs Villanova tonight because you havnt added it yet. 8 and a half months twc! Give us access to ESPN3 now! Wah.