Time Warner Inks Pacts With Oxygen and Nat Geo
By IGNAZIO MESSINA -- Multichannel News, 11/18/2001 7:00:00 PM
Time Warner Cable last week signed carriage deals that will boost Oxygen's presence in Manhattan and lift National Geographic Channel's subscriber rolls to the 20-million mark by year-end.
The Oxygen deal, announced Nov. 15, calls for Time Warner's New York system to move the women's service from a digital tier to channel 61 on its basic package on Dec. 18.
Oxygen's move to the standard package is the result of an accord that parent Oxygen Media and MSO parent AOL Time Warner Inc. struck last April. The network was promised access to 10 million Time Warner Cable subscribers by 2002.
The media conglomerate also pledged to boost distribution of Oxygen Media's online content through America Online. The move should help raise Oxygen's profile in the nation's largest DMA and with the Madison Avenue community.
Oxygen will end the year in more than 29 million households.
National Geographic Channel announced a deal with Time Warner last Wednesday that will nearly double its subscriber count. The MSO agreed to launch Nat Geo to 80 percent of its 12.7 million customers over the next 14 months, a commitment that will lift the service's subscriber count to over 20 million within its first year.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sources said Time Warner will get between $3 to $5 per sub to launch Nat Geo. The network's normal rate card is around 15 cents.
Time Warner plans to introduce National Geographic to more than half of the committed subscribers by the end of the year. The remaining homes will receive the channel next year, according to MSO spokesman Michael Luftman. In concert with other agreements, Nat Geo officials said the network will be available to 45 million households within the next five years.
Nat Geo launched in January with 10 million subscribers, including 7.1 million from direct-broadcast satellite provider DirecTV Inc.
Fox Cable Networks Group executive vice president of affiliate sales and marketing Lindsay Gardner said Nat Geo has either gained carriage agreements or is near to imminent commitments with 12 of the top 13 distributors.
Only one top MSO, Cox Communications Inc., refuses to carry Nat Geo because of its 24.6 percent ownership stake in direct competitor Discovery Networks Inc., Gardner claimed.
"We have built a business plan where we don't plan to get access to any of Cox's [6.2 million] subscribers," Gardner said.
Cox spokeswoman Ellen East called Gardner's claims "flatly untrue. We have not made many changes to our digital networks … in four years."
Among the networks Cox has added to its digital platform in the past four years are SoapNet, Fox Sports World, Lifetime Movie Network, Toon Disney, History Channel International and Biography Channel, East said.
Series Released Into 'Wild’
03/22/2010Nat Geo Gets More Visual On Web
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