Thursday Night – Versus NHL Opening Night
7pm Washington at Boston
10pm San Jose at Colorado
Versus president Jamie Davis is a man on the move. His network turns three this year and there has been success but like any good executive he wants more.
What he can’t understand is why he is having issues with DirecTV. Issues that will likely keep NHL fans from seeing Thursday’’s opening night double header. The Caps – Bruins at 7pm followed by the Sharks-Avs broadcast where Joe Sakic will have his retirement celebration before a full house in Denver.
Davis and I spoke recently about Versus and their stance on DirecTV.
JW: Recently Versus was dropped by DirecTV. Why?
Davis:”They wanted to put our network in a pay tier sports package calling us an infomercial network and saying our fees were out of line. We are working out a new contract and I understand posturing, everyone wants to try to get a better deal but taking us off DirecTV makes no sense. The channel could remain on while we craft a new deal. What made me angry was that DirecTV disrespected our viewers by dropping us while we were in contract talks. We did not change our price to them; we offered DirecTV the same deal that we have offered to all the other cable companies. That said I am optimistic that we will be able to do a deal. We have had 80,000 viewers contact DirecTV wanting us back on plus Dish Network and other cable companies coming on board have made up for that loss of viewers. But we still hold out hope that we can come together before we open the NHL season and get a deal done with DirecTV.”
JW: Versus has come a long way in three years.
Davis:”We are very proud of being the fastest growing network on cable. The NHL, Indy Racing League, big time college football, the Professional Bull Riders League, the Tour de France, the WEC fighting and our outdoor programming have made us a hit nationally. Our ratings in each category are up over last year with a stunning 68% increase in viewers on the weekends. We had FSU’s big upset over BYU and this week we open our NHL coverage plus the end of the IRL season is just a few weeks away and there is a real battle for the driving championship so yes we feel that viewers are finding Versus but better than that once they find us they are coming back.”
JW: What is in the future for Versus?
Davis:”We want to continue to find programming that is compelling to sports fans. The NHL looms with the regular season starting this week and all of our broadcasts from the opener with the Caps all the way through the Stanley Cup Playoffs will be in high definition. Speaking of HD we will for the second straight year offer Tour de France coverage in HD. We will continue to improve our college sports schedule with our partners in the PAC 10, Mountain West and Ivy League conferences. At the same time we hope viewer’s checkout the vast amount of broadband content we have to offer on our website.”
Meanwhile over at DirecTV…
The satellite provider issued a statement DirecTV spokesman Robert Mercer said negotiations are ongoing. “We’re open to putting the games up for our customers while we continue to negotiate,” he said. “The puck is at their end of the rink.”
Industry sources maintain that for DirecTV this battle is about the money. It seems that Versus wants to increase their cost per subscriber from about 21cents to 26 cents.
Mercer told the L.A. Times “A lot of fans understand why we’re doing it. We want to hold down programming costs. Also, understand that Versus is owned by Comcast, our largest competitor.”
Make no mistake about this the NHL and Versus need to have DirecTV as an outlet. A pay tier would likely cost the NHL a sizeable amount of the estimated 18 million DirecTV subscribers.
So that is why you will find a full out blitz on the Versus and NHL websites.
Unlike Major League Baseball, NBA basketball and the NFL the NHL only has one cable partner, Versus along with their broadcast partner NBC. So eyeballs are very important to both the NHL and Versus making any problem with satellite giant DirecTV a major problem.
Bottom-line a deal between Versus and DirecTV needs to get done fast for benefit of all sides in this issue but most of all the hockey fans.
Versus Opening Night – Thursday
7pm Washington at Boston
10pm San Jose at Colorado
