Hildebrandt: One option for Cubs in post-WGN world is to run their own multicast channel
From SABR member Chuck Hildebrandt at SABRmedia.org on June 20, 2014:
Ed Sherman has written a couple of pretty good articles, both at his website and in the Chicago Tribune, about what the Cubs might do if they opt out of their agreement WGN-TV to carry 70-75 games per year: operate their own multicast channel.
(To be clear, this is a different deal than the WGN radio situation, in which the Cubs dumped ‘GN for WBBM-AM and the CBS promotional muscle behind it.)
A multicast channel is what “over the air” (OTA) TV has become in the wake of the move to all digital television for US stations in 2009. Now the main TV channels are all “dash ones” (e.g., 2-1, 5-1, 7-1, etc.), and many of these channels carry subchannels (e.g., 5-2, 5-3, etc.) that feature additional programming, usually old TV shows and movies, cooking shows, or infomercials.
With options for OTA relatively scant—the Cubs can’t move the games over to Comcast Sportsnet (CSN) because, frankly, CSN doesn’t want ‘em, and no channel that’s a network affiliate can be expected to take them on—the Cubs would either have to go to a another local channel with less reach (such as WCIU-TV 26 or WPWR-TV 50); go crawling back to WGN and accept their newly suggested arrangement with less guaranteed money and more revenue sharing; or, again, start their own multicast channel, which sounds cool at first thought but would have the potential problem of not getting sufficient carriage by satellite and cable providers to warrant the startup and operational expense.
Read the full article here: http://sabrmedia.org/2014/06/20/one-option-for-cubs-in-post-wgn-tv-world-run-your-own-multicast-channel/
Originally published: June 20, 2014. Last Updated: June 20, 2014.