OLN
Encyclopedia : O : OL : OLN : OLN
- For other uses, see (disambiguation)}}}.
OLN (formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network until July 2005) is a cable television channel owned by Comcast. Starting in September 2006, it will change its name to Versus reflecting more varied programming.[Broadcasting & Cable magazine]
Programming
OLN's programming is an unusual mix of extreme sports, more sedate fare like hunting, and, most notably, coverage of professional cycling and ice hockey. OLN currently owns the American rights to live coverage of the Tour de France. OLN also acquired the cable rights for National Hockey League games as The NHL on OLN has picked up the U.S. rights to the new A1 Grand Prix series, and the National Lacrosse League in a Saturday primetime, "Game of the Week" format for the 2007 season. It also airs weekly Arena Football League games. When the network becomes Versus, it will eliminate outdoor-related programming.Coverage
Extreme sports
In July 2005, OLN revamped its image, focusing on more extreme outdoor sporting events. As noted by an OLN press release, its programming is "designed to be real, bold and awe-inspiring and supports our mission to bring to life the thrills, challenges and competition in the outdoors that our audience craves." In conjunction with the revamp, OLN's logo and website (in the USA) were completely redesigned as well. As part of the revamp, OLN acquired the rights from NBC Universal of the X Games-type Gravity Games as well as the rebroadcast rights to the CBS reality series Survivor, and began airing the series from the beginning of season one on July 24, 2005. OLN is also home to many Professional Bull Riding (PBR) rodeo and bull-riding events.
Cycling
In 2004, OLN capitalized on the popularity of Lance Armstrong during the Tour de France, showing virtually nothing but Tour-related coverage for over three weeks, including their live coverage, hosted by Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen, Al Trautwig, and Bob Roll, as well as reality programming such as The Lance Chronicles, a show focusing on Armstrong's training for the Tour, and The Roadside Tour, following the Cutters, a particularly devoted group of Armstrong fans. This coverage was grouped under the title "The Cyclysm," which was meant to refer to Armstrong's effort to win a record sixth Tour de France. OLN marketed this with the line, "Someday, someone may ask you, 'Where were you during the Cyclysm?'" A year later, Le Tour on the network was promoted as "Cyclysm II" as Armstrong went for his seventh consecutive — and final — maillot jaune, which he won.Ice hockey
On August 17, 2005, ESPN chose not to match OLN's three-year, $200 million offer for the NHL's U.S. cable TV rights. [link]. In addition, there were also reports that OLN might take the Monday night, Wednesday night (plus most Wednesday afternoons), and Sunday night cable telecast rights to Major League Baseball games away from ESPN, but ESPN managed to work out a new deal allowing fewer local blackouts of Monday games (a major sticking point for ESPN). ESPN's other package, which includes a Thursday game, games on holidays, and Division Series playoff games, expires after the 2006 season and has been awarded to TBS, replacing the Thursday night games with a Sunday afternoon package. OLN was expected to bid on those rights as well. [link] OLN still has one last opportunity to acquire Baseball rights, as one of the League Championship Series is still up for grabs, and a Mediaweek article from July 17, 2006 states that Major League Baseball may include regular season games and a nightly Baseball news and highlights show similar to Baseball Tonight as part of the package.Football
However, OLN was shut out of what it hoped would be its biggest prize, the NFL. OLN was thought to be the favorite to land one of the league's cable TV packages, which would cover Thursday and Saturday night games (except in Week 1, which is reserved to NBC), but the NFL opted instead to put games on its own NFL Network, in addition to the primary deal with ESPN for Monday Night Football. This absence of the massively-popular NFL, coupled with low NHL ratings (although an improvement on what OLN previously carried in the same timeslots) and the fact that the rights to the NBA and MLB are locked up for the foreseeable future, makes further subscription growth uncertain.During certain games, OLN simulcasts the CBC feed of NHL games, mostly those where teams from western Canada are at home.
On February 17, 2006, OLN reached an agreement with the Arena Football League to broadcast some games during the AFL's 20th Anniversary season. OLN televised one regular-season game in each of the following 11 weeks as well as a wild card playoff game. [link]
Other sports
OLN has also secured coverage for the 2007 America's Cup, which was also a staple on ESPN and ESPN2 for years. It will begin to show qualifying regattas in late 2005, the Louis Vuitton Cup for challengers in 2007, and the America's Cup match between the Louis Vuitton winner and current champions, Alinghi of Switzerland in Valencia, Spain. In 2006, it picked up American broadcast rights (in conjunction with The Tennis Channel) of Davis Cup events. It was also announced that OLN will enter the boxing arena this year with a series of fight programs promoted by Bob Arum's Top Rank group. In addition, the network has signed for a Saturday night "Game of the Week" for the National Lacrosse League starting with the 2006-07 season.Distribution
In October 2005, OLN elected not to provide its NHL coverage to a number of distributors, including EchoStar (Dish Network) and Cablevision, which both refused Comcast's request to place OLN on a much higher-penetration package. While Cablevision eventually came to an agreement making OLN available to any customer with digital cable, EchoStar retaliated by pulling OLN from its service; it was Dish Network's stance that few of its customers would be willing to have the channel if it meant raising rates. On April 24, 2006 Dish Network and OLN reached a long term agreement to restore the channel.Viewer complaints
Although OLN covers several important cycling events outside the Tour de France, the coverage is generally poorly received by serious cycling audiences, who complain it consists mostly of 1-hour, heavily edited summaries, rather than the several hours of daily live coverage given to the Tour. Also noisome to many American cycling fans was a perceived overwhelming focus on Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France to the exclusion of all other riders and races; this programming attitude has given the channel such nicknames as "Only Lance News" and "Our Lousy Network" in cycling circles. As of 2005, OLN was still offering live coverage of the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, but, due to poor ratings, all other events were relegated to compressed, tape-delay coverage, including the Vuelta a España, despite its status as a three-week long grand tour on par with the Tour and Giro. However, in 2006 OLN has offered live (and commercial-free) coverage via streaming video on its website of the Giro and Vuelta, with a Sunday highlights show of the week in review of not just the Grand Tours, but Classics as well.OLN is available in much fewer television households than ESPN, a fact that became apparent during the 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs. At least two columnists complained publicly about being unable to watch playoff games on the network when it has exclusive rights to carry them. OLN avoided more trouble when several teams in markets where OLN is available on digital cable, such as New York (except for some New Jersey suburbs served by OLN's parent company, Comcast) and Los Angeles, either did not make the playoffs or exited in the early rounds. One of them joked that OLN really meant "Outside Looking iN." Fans of the Anaheim Ducks were unable to see games from round 3 of the playoffs, causing OLN to get in trouble, which was actually worse than if the Kings had made the 1st round, which would have locally produced the early round games not on NBC.Los Angeles Times, page D2, May 16, 2006 and again May 27, 2006
See also
References
External links
- [OLN US]
- [OLN Canada]
- [OLN Press Release re: NHL-OLN TV agreement]
- [COMCAST'S PITCH]
- [Comcast/OLN Eyes ESPN's MLB Rights]
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