Coda

'Grand Slam' for Blue Ridge, YES

Palmerton, Pa. —Blue Ridge Communications and YES Network reached an unprecedented pact under which the operator has renewed its linear distribution agreement with the regional sports network, which televises New York Yankees baseball games, and secured video-on-demand and local streaming rights to Bronx Bombers contests on YES.

In addition, Blue Ridge, beginning next year, will offer YES's “national” package of content for its subscribers that fall outside the baseball team's television territory.

Although Verizon Communications's FiOS TV has also reached separate deals that have given the telco access to this set of rights, Blue Ridge is the first distributor to finalize an agreement for all four of the YES properties simultaneously.

“Yes, it's the first of its kind. We were able to sync everything up with Blue Ridge, which has been a strong and progressive affiliate for YES,” said senior vice president of affiliate sales Matt Cacciato. “With Verizon, we did things in pieces.”

“We are very excited to work with the YES Network to launch live streaming of the Yankees and YES programming on demand,” said Blue Ridge vice president of operations Mark Masenheimer. “New York is right in our backyard, and this gives our customers the option to watch the Yankees online as well as access to hours of programming available on-demand.”

From a linear perspective, Blue Ridge has televised YES since its rookie season in 2002, as the majority of its 175,000 video customers, residing in the eastern part of the Keystone state, fall within the RSN's broadcast territory. — Mike Reynolds

CBS College Sports Goes Dee

New York — With a total of 43 contests this season, all in HD for the first time, CBS College Sports Network will kick off its slate of college-football coverage with a Sept. 12 quadruple-header.

Executive vice president and general manager Steve Herbst calls the slate CBS College's “best and deepest lineup yet,” one that features such top Mountain West Conference and Conference USA teams as No. 18 Utah (preseason rankings), No. 17 TCU, No. 24 BYU and Houston, where the network received a distribution upgrade from Comcast.

Through a new five-year pact, CBS College will also televise five Army contests, as well as Navy home games and several Air Force tilts (via Mountain West affiliation) as it positions itself as the home of service-academy football. For Oct. 9, it is developing Day in the Life, a documentary about service-academy student athletes.

The network has also added veteran play-by-play man Dave Ryan and former USC and New York Giants defensive back Jason Sehorn to call the Army action, while Randy Cross will call the Navy games.

“The studio programs, returning from hiatus, are coming back strong, and with our game schedule and original programming like Day in the Life, it rounds out the schedule nicely,” said Herbst. — Mike Reynolds

TiVo Sues Verizon, AT&T

Alviso, Calif. — Taking aim at the two biggest telco-TV operators, TiVo has filed patent-infringement suits against AT&T and Verizon Communications for allegedly violating three of its patents.

TiVo filed the lawsuits Aug. 26 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the same court that found Dish Network and EchoStar Technologies to have violated the digital video recorder maker's “Time Warp” patent and issued a contempt ruling ordering the satellite operator to disable some 4 million digital video recorders. Dish and EchoStar are appealing.

TiVo's complaints seek damages from the telcos for alleged past infringement and a permanent injunction, similar to that issued by the court against Dish and EchoStar.

AT&T declined to comment on the TiVo litigation; representatives for Verizon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. — Todd Spangler

Pioneer Dash Dies

Tucson, Ariz. — Gerald Dash, whose long cable career began with early franchising efforts and selling HBO subscriptions, died on Aug. 30 at his home here of a terminal illness, family members said. He was 68.

Inducted into the Cable Television Pioneers in 2005, when he was a senior VP of training at RCH Cable Outsourcing Services, Dash began his cable career selling door-to-door. He worked at many cable companies over the years, including Comcast, RCN and TelePrompTer. — Kent Gibbons