OMW keeps hearing rumors that SportsTime Ohio – the ramping-up Indians’ TV network – has signed deals with two major holdouts, Armstrong and Insight. But we have yet to hear confirmation of those rumors.
We did, however, stumble onto an article in the Columbus Dispatch, a newspaper which must recently have actually started offering some content to non-subscribers on its website. The Dispatch’s Scott Priestle quotes STO’s Jim Liberatore as expecting an agreement with Insight “by the end of the week”, saying the network and the system serving parts of the Columbus region have had “very good talks”.
With Time Warner Cable an original STO outlet, and WOW Cable joining the STO affiliate roster this week, Insight is the sole major piece remaining for Columbus cable viewers.
Once again, there’s no word of a pending agreement with either satellite provider – DirecTV or Dish Network. But the Dispatch article reveals the likely Columbus over-air outlet for STO’s games…LIN TV’s current UPN affiliate, WWHO/53. WWHO’s Lance Carwile tells the paper that the deal to carry the over-air games originated at WKYC/3 in Cleveland is “all but final”.
And an additional note about the Massillon Cable (and Clear Picture) pickup of STO earlier this week. In an article in the Massillon Independent, the cable company’s Bob Gessner reiterates what he said in an article in the co-owned Canton Repository…the STO contract won’t mean an immediate rate increase for his systems.
But…he notes that if Fox Sports Net Ohio doesn’t REDUCE its rates later this year, that might not be the case…
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