Horse and carriage

On the GSN board I noted that the network will soon be available in 80 million households. This sparked a debate over GSN's carriage on cable sports tiers and other odd tiers...

GSN president David Goldhill said the network will soon pass the 80 million mark in household availability. This naturally tends to make all the viewer numbers look better. GSN isn't fully distributed on cable/satellite systems yet, but it's getting closer. When Rich Cronin took over in 2001, GSN was available in only about 35 million households. Despite endless kvetching from the game show Interwebs - and Lord knows I've done my share - GSN has grown and prospered after the near-death experience in 2000-01.

Other poster: Agreed. But it [GSN's carriage on sports tiers on some systems] really did happen because of the poker and blackjack shows.

I've seen the poker and blackjack shows blamed for a lot of things. But the reason the operators stick GSN on obscure or strange tiers is simple: the network gets modest overall ratings and very poor demos. Believe me, if GSN was averaging two million viewers regularly with big numbers in 18-49, it would be on the most accessible tier the operators could design.

It's the numbers, not poker or blackjack. If anything, poker helped GSN because it drew some younger demos, something that almost never happens on the network. Anyway, considering the demos, GSN should be very happy to get to the 80 million mark.

Another poster: It's [sports channels subscription fees] probably close to $10 or more per sub since sports are the highest cost programming there is.

And once again, the Nielsen Company is the reason. Sports bring in young male demos, notoriously hard to catch for just about any other kind of programming. That's why the operators will pay a premium (however grudgingly) for the sports channels. In particular, ESPN gets away with highway robbery.

Same poster: Truth be told, if you want to know who to blame its GSN. To get distributed they agreed to this placement.

GSN hasn't just meekly submitted to the operators. Like many other networks, they've had some battles over the years. Right now they're engaged in an endless dispute with Cablevision before the FCC.