Blazers Dunk Regional Sports Service

In a surprise move, the National Basketball Association's Portland Trail
Blazers Tuesday ceased operations of its own regional sports network.

Action Sports Cable Network, which carried 27 Blazers games, went dark
midnight Tuesday morning after failing to reach enough cable homes in the
Portland, Ore., marketplace.

The two-year old, high-definition cable sports channel -- owned by Charter
Communications Inc. chairman and Blazers owner Paul Allen -- failed to convince
the area's largest MSO, AT&T Broadband, to ante up 50 cents per subscriber
for its Blazers games, as well as local high-school and college games.

'Action Sports Cable Network has made the difficult decision to shut down its
regional sports channel and cease operations, effective immediately,' ASCN
executive vice president and chief operating officer Harry Hutt said.

'Unfortunately, ASCN was never able to achieve sufficient distribution of its
product to allow it to remain in business,' he added.

Sources said the Blazers will now look at a number of local outlets for its
games, including the area's incumbent regional sports network, Fox Sports Net
Northwest.

For many years before launching the service, the team offered its games via
pay-per-view. And in 2000, the Blazers distributed 25 games on an AT&T
Broadband local-access channel.

R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.