The End of an Empire

By
published

Adelphia Communications Corp.-owned Empire Sports Network will shut its doors as of March 7, according to company executives.

Adelphia officials said financial losses were too great to continue operations at the 14-year-old regional sports network, which primarily featured Buffalo Sabres National Hockey League games.

Pending bankruptcy-court approval, Adelphia will move Sabres games to Madison Square Garden Network if and when the current NHL labor dispute is resolved.

 The network will lay off 36 people as part of the move, according to Tom Haywood, area vice president of operations for Adelphia. Haywood could not say how many subscribers Empire currently has.

Adelphia’s 400,000-subscriber Buffalo, N.Y.-area system will replace Empire with NFL Network, which offers some National Football League Buffalo Bills-related programming.

R. Thomas Umstead
R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.