ESPN Deportes Inks Bright House Carriage Contract
Pact Gives Spanish-Language Service Digital Basic Positioning In Tampa
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 2/1/2008 5:07:00 AM
Bright House Networks has rolled out ESPN Deportes on its digital-basic lineup in the Tampa market.
The Jan. 31 launch, terms of which were not disclosed, makes the 24-7 Spanish-language sports network available to 600,000 of the operator’s digital-basic customers in Tampa on channel 153. The service adjoins ESPN’s suite of digital services on Bright House’s systems, which positions ESPNews, ESPNU and ESPN Classic at channels 150, 151 and 152, respectively.
The Bright House rollout comes in time for baseball fans to get a look at ESPN Deportes' exclusive telecast of the Carribean Series from Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, which runs from Feb. 2 through Feb. 7. Mexico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic are competing for winter ball supremacy, with a pair of games daily at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.
“Delivering ESPN Deportes and its incredible lineup of Spanish-language sports programming to Bright House Networks’ digital basic subscribers in Tampa is a very exciting opportunity for ESPN,” said David Preschlack, executive vice president, Affiliate Sales and Marketing, Disney and ESPN Media Networks, in a statement. “ESPN Deportes demonstrates our commitment to serving Latino sports fans with culturally-relevant content, and this is a great step forward to making the network accessible to viewers nationwide.”
