Versus (TV channel)
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| Versus (Formerly OLN)
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Versus (known as OLN until September 25, 2006) is a cable television sports channel owned by Comcast and shown in the United States. The OLN brand was retained in Canada, and with the exception of select sports (notably ice hockey), simulcasts all of Versus programming. Formerly, OLN stood for the Outdoor Life Network, and the name was licensed from Outdoor Life Magazine.
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[edit] Programming
Versus' programming is an unusual mix of extreme sports, more sedate fare like hunting, and coverage of professional cycling and ice hockey. Versus currently owns the American rights to live coverage of the Tour de France. Versus also acquired the cable rights for National Hockey League games as The NHL on Versus. It also 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.
[edit] Coverage
[edit] 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. Versus is also home to many Professional Bull Riders (PBR) rodeo and bull-riding events.
[edit] 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. Versus 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.
[edit] 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. [1]. The NHL's deal with OLN parent Comcast also gives the company part ownership of a U.S. version of NHL Network, and distribution on all of its cable systems. Comcast also has the rights to simulcast out of market NHL games on its Comcast SportsNet stations. Both Comcast and the NHL have the right to void the final year of the contract.
During certain games, Versus simulcasts the CBC feed of NHL games, mostly those where teams from western Canada are at home.
[edit] Football
Versus currently airs College Football on Versus games from the Mountain West Conference. This relationship began before OLN rebranded to Versus with the September 9 game between Colorado State and Colorado in the annual Rocky Mountain Showdown.[2] [3]
Earlier in 2006, OLN broadcast some games during the Arena Football League's 20th Anniversary season. Versus televised a weekly regular-season game for 11 weeks as well as a wild card playoff game. [4] With the league's main broadcast contract with NBC not being renewed, the future of the AFL broadcasts, including whether they will air again on Versus, is unknown.
OLN/Versus, however, was shut out of what it hoped would be its biggest prize, the NFL. Versus 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 Versus 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.
[edit] Basketball
Versus will be adding college basketball to its schedule for the upcoming season, as it has secured the rights to broadcast eight men's Mountain West Conference basketball games, including the Conference Championship game.[5]
After losing out on the NFL and Major League Baseball, the next major league professional sport with television rights up for grabs is the National Basketball Association. The current national broadcast contracts with ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV expire after the 2007-08 NBA season.
[edit] Baseball
There had been 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. [6] Versus had one last opportunity to acquire baseball rights, as one of the League Championship Series was up for grabs (the other LCS was previously announced to air on Fox), but TBS won those rights as well. [7]
[edit] Other sports
Versus has secured coverage for the 2007 America's Cup, which was also a staple on ESPN and ESPN2 for years. OLN began to show qualifying regattas in late 2005. Versus will air 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. Also in 2006, Versus entered 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. Versus is also jumping on the darts bandwagon in the US, airing the Professional Darts Corporation's Holsten Premier League Darts starting in 2006. Even professional wrestling is a possibility: on November 27, 2006, a sign was held up at the beginning of WWE Raw which said, "WCW should be on Versus." It is unclear whether the sign referred to rebroadcasts of classic matches, like that shown on WWE 24/7, as well as some classic boxing matches already on VS.) or whether World Wrestling Entertainment plans to relaunch the promotion.
[edit] 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 Versus on a much higher-penetration package. During this time, Versus blacked out NHL coverage on these systems, replacing them with other programming. It is believed that the reason behind these blackouts had to do with a penalty fee that Comcast would have had to pay the NHL if they did not significantly increase their distribution.
While Cablevision eventually came to an agreement making OLN/Versus 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.
[edit] Viewer complaints
Although Versus 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.
Versus is available in significantly 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. Versus avoided more trouble when several teams in markets where Versus is not available on digital cable, such as New York (except for some New Jersey suburbs served by Versus'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."
[edit] Logos
OLN's logo used before 2003. |
OLN logo from 2003 - July 2005 |
OLN logo from July 2005 - September 2006 (remains present day Canadian logo) |
Current logo of re-branded OLN, now called Versus |
