Two weeks before the kickoff of its seven networks, Pac-12 Enterprises has reached agreement with a pair of Pacific Northwest-based cable operators under its recently inked master agreement with the National Cable Television Cooperative.
Pac-12 Enterprises, the content and multiplatform media company for the collegiate conference that bears its name, inked deals with Bend Cable Communications and Frontier Communications. Seven Pac-12 networks, a national feed, plus regionals mapping the conference footprint in Northern California (Stanford and Cal); Southern California (USC and UCLA); Oregon (Oregon State and Oregon); Washington (Washington State and Washington); Arizona (Arizona State and Arizona); and Mountain (Utah and Colorado) areas; are scheduled to debut on Aug. 15. They will be accompanied by a flanking online portal and TV Everywhere platform.
BendBroadband and Frontier join charter affiliates Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cox and Bright House Networks in launching the channels. Those four large MSOs have committed to placing Pac-12 Networks in some 40 million homes, coming out of the gate.
The pacts, financial terms of which were not disclosed, reflect different programming approaches by the MSOs.
BendBroadband will launch all of the new networks in mid-month, with Pac-12 Oregon and Pac-12 National positioned on the company's Essentials tier, its basic-cable level of service, in standard and high-definition. The other five regionals will be offered as part of the Central Oregon-based cable company's sports tier, according to the Pac-12.BendBroadband also plans to launch Pac-12's TV Everywhere service as part of its "bendbroadband2go" platform.
"BendBroadband chose to carry the National and all six Regional nets because the Pac-12 Conference is very important to our Central Oregon Community," said Amy Tykeson, BendBroadband CEO in announcing the affiliate agreement. "We are excited to provide fans from each of these regions access to coverage of their favorite teams."
As for Frontier, it will carry Pac-12 Oregon and Pac-12 Washington in both of those states.
"Frontier values our customers and their desire for exciting programming that will be provided by Pac-12 Networks to our FiOS TV customers in Washington and Oregon," said Denise Baumbach, president, Western Region, Frontier Communications, in a statement. "From the start of football season through baseball and everything in between, this programming will offer sports enthusiast's coverage of their Pacific Northwest collegiate favorites."
During the first three weeks of the 2012 football season, the Pac-12 Networks will televise five games from Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State, including San Diego State at Washington and OSU's home opener in week one, as well as Fresno State at Oregon and head coach Mike Leach's home debut at Washington State in week two.
Frontier subscribers will also be able to watch games from all six regions on Pac-12 Now, the TV Everywhere
platform that allows fans to watch games on connected devices like the computer and iPad.
