The Golf Channel becomes a casualty of cable’s migration to all-digital

Rogers Cable informed its customers this week that as of July 6, The Golf Channel (TGC) will be available exclusively on digital cable. While the move seems a minor step in the complete migration from analog to digital, it says something about the power of Rogers when it can arbitrarily take a channel off the analog dial, apparently without the knowledge of TGC as well. "We’re still in negotiations with , believe it or not, so we really don’t know what’s going to happen," Dan Higgins, a spokesperson for TGC, tells Canadian Communications Reports. "As far as I know it’s not a sure thing. It’s happened before where cable companies in the US send out a notice to their subscribers and there still can be changes made, but basically isn’t official until it’s changed." Rogers, however, seems to have already moved on. "We’ve notified our customer base of this move and the channel will be moving to 410 July ," says David Purdy, VP and general manager, television, at Rogers Cable. "We’re talking with about ways to broaden the audience for golf, but in terms of analog to digital migration, that’s a done deal." The cableco plans to fill the vacancy left by TGC on the analog dial with the newly launched MTV Canada. Although Higgins says TGC would like to keep things as they are and be available to analog and digital subscribers, that isn’t likely to happen. And even though MTV Canada is replacing TGC, Purdy says it wasn’t entirely a situation where Rogers had to move an existing channel to make room for a new one. "It was an overall decision and it takes into account lots of factors," he says. "Occasionally we see an opportunity to take a more niche service and put it on digital and move a more broad-based, popular service into that slot, and that’s the decision we have made." Purdy is predicting that MTV – which he says is one of the highest rated channels in the United States – will become one of the more popular services on Rogers’ tier-three analog package. And while Purdy won’t comment on TGC’s ratings, he says that sports is a niche and golf is a niche unto sports. "Our sports viewers are some of the most avid and early movers when it comes to adopting the digital set-top box technology," he adds. "So when you are looking at what channels to move to digital, this sports service made sense." TGC will now be available as part of Rogers’ Sports Theme Pack, or as an à la carte specialty channel. Purdy anticipates little customer impact over the move because digital cable is so popular among sports fans already. But it’s not hard to see why TGC would like to remain as an analog option as well. Without taking into account which particular package the subscribers have, Rogers first quarter statistics show the company has 2,260,200 basic cable subscribers and 1,222,700 digital terminals in service. To those analog customers who will miss TGC when it moves, Purdy says Rogers is offering a promotion to entice them to go digital and get the channel again. But will TGC be enough to prompt customers to rent a digital set-top box? "I don’t know if it’ll drive penetration any higher," admits Purdy, adding "that wasn’t the driving factor. I think that what we were trying to do was take advantage of the fact that so many of the golf viewers already had digital cable." Rogers is dedicated to leading the conversion to an all-digital television world and its tier-three channels will be leading the way. Purdy says it’s Rogers’ intention to convert all its tier-three analog specialty channels – Speed Channel, ROB TV, CNBC, History Television, HGTV, Teletoon, among others – to digital at some point over the next couple of years. "We anticipate over the next several years that we will be 100% digital," he says. "From time to time we may move on service like this and we’ll manage the customer impact in such ways that no one leaves unhappy." A year ago, Rogers signed a memorandum of understanding with Canada’s six-largest specialty channel providers – CTV Inc., Global Television Network Inc., CHUM Ltd., Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting, Astral Media and Corus Entertainment Inc. In it, the parties agreed that once 95% of subscribers to a given tier are receiving digital, all channels in that tier can then be migrated wholly to digital, with no requisite analog carriage (CCR, May 6/05). If the early digital migration strategy is to move the channels that will alienate the fewest analog subscribers, it’s not hard to see the logic behind moving TGC. The bulk of the channel’s programming comes from European Tour and Nationwide Tour events, infomercials, and instructional programs, a lineup which limits its appeal mainly to golf enthusiasts. However, beginning next year TGC will be broadcasting live Thursday and Friday coverage of all PGA Tour events, currently the domain of The Sports Network (TSN) on Canadian analog channels. From that standpoint the TGC move is great news for TSN, as it will maintain its monopoly of the analog eyeballs for these events. "We certainly weren’t trying to do anything for TSN per se at the expense of ," says Purdy. "It was merely a decision that said a high percentage of already have digital cable."

The Golf Channel becomes a casualty of cable’s migration to all-digital

News | 06/05/2006 4:00 am EDT

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