New York and Chicago -- Insight Communications today announced it has reached an agreement with the Big Ten Network to carry the channel on its Classic service in Columbus, Ohio and Evansville, Ind. and on its Insight Digital 2.0 service in all of its Kentucky systems, including Louisville, Northern Kentucky, Lexington and Bowling Green. The network will be launched throughout Kentucky with a two-week promotion on Classic service. The service will be available to approximately 640,000 customers.
"We are pleased that we have reached a reasonable agreement with the Big Ten Network," said Michael Willner, CEO of Insight. "We know that our customers who are college sports fans will be very excited to watch their favorite teams, starting this Saturday when Buckeye fans can watch Ohio State take on Youngstown."
"We're happy to add Insight to our growing list of distribution partners," Mark Silverman, president of Big Ten Network, said, "Insight is a leading distributor in several key communities in the Midwest, so we are especially pleased that their customers will be able to watch all of the Big Ten games."
Insight Communications is the ninth largest cable operator in the United States with approximately 1.4 million customer relationships in the four contiguous states of Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. Insight offers bundled, state-of-the-art analog and digital video, high-speed Internet and voice telephony services to its customers.
Starting Thursday, Big Ten Network will offer fans 39 football games, 140 regular-season basketball games, more than 55 women's basketball games, Big Ten Championships, soccer, field hockey, volleyball, baseball, wrestling and all of the other NCAA championship sports.
To celebrate Thursday's 8 p.m. launch of The Big Ten Network, Penn State President Graham Spanier, Director of Athletics Tim Curley and special guests will take in the inaugural broadcast at the big-screen TV in the HUB-Robeson Center on the University Park campus.
Students and members of the Penn State and State College communities are welcome to join the viewing of the Network's first program, "Big Ten Tonight," a special edition of the network's nightly studio show hosted by Dave Revsine. The show will preview the upcoming Big Ten football season and closely examine all of the weekend's conference teams in action.
Penn State's season-opener against Florida International, which kicks off at noon Saturday in Beaver Stadium, will air on the Big Ten Network, which can be viewed locally in the State College area on campus cable channel 20 and D&E cable channel 68, and nationally on DirecTV channel 221. The area's largest cable provider, Comcast, has not yet agreed to carry the network.
At least three Penn State football games and approximately 20 Nittany Lion basketball games will air on the Big Ten Network during the upcoming year, including the FIU and Buffalo (Sept. 15) football games and at least one conference clash. At least 15 of Penn State's conference men's basketball games will air on the network.
Penn State's field hockey, women's volleyball and men's and women's soccer teams will appear on the Big Ten Network this fall.
To get the Big Ten Network, fans should call 1-866-WANT-B10 and record a message or be patched through to their cable operator and request that the network be a part of their expanded basic package. Comcast customers should call 1-215-665-1700 to request the Big Ten Network.
The Big Ten Network will televise 350-400 events during its inaugural year, including at least 35 football games, more than 125 men's basketball games, including 64 of the 99 intra-conference games, women's basketball and more than 170 Olympic sport events.
The Big Ten Network is a national television network, available to all cable and satellite providers nationwide, that will allow fans to see their home teams regardless of where they live. The network currently has national agreements in place with DirecTV (Ch. 220) and AT&T and agreements with approximately 100 cable operators within the eight states of the Big Ten. In total, the network currently is available to viewers in more than 16 million homes. The Big Ten Network is a joint venture between subsidiaries of the Big Ten Conference and Fox Cable Networks.
The Big Ten Network will air approximately 70 live Penn State events during its inaugural year. The vast majority of Penn State's 29 varsity sports will be featured on the Big Ten Network in 2007-08, in addition to at least 60 hours of institutional, non-athletic programming.
For more information regarding the Big Ten Network, visit http://www.BigTenNetwork.com online.