Sprout Gets First Bright House Launch
Pre-Schoolers’ Network Notches First Rollout Under Time Warner Deal
By Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 10/2/2007 2:16:00 PM
PBS Kids Sprout Tuesday said its first launch under a new affiliation agreement with Time Warner Cable is on Bright House Networks in Bakersfield, Calif.
Advance/Newhouse Communications owned Bright House has about 110,000 subscribers in that portion of Southern California, which includes much of Kern County.
Sprout – owned by a joint venture of PBS, HIT Entertainment and cable provider Comcast -- signed a corporate affiliation deal with Time Warner Cable in August that lets Comcast seek carriage for the 24-hour network on TWC and BHN systems. Many of those systems already carry Sprout on-demand programming. BHN emerged from a partnership of Time Warner Entertainment and Advance/Newhouse Communications, and BHN retains an affiliation with Time Warner for programming and equipment purchases. Time Warner Cable has about 14 million customers, and BHN has about 2.4 million.
