“There will be other channels that are going to come down — channels that aren’t watched as much will come down."
/John Ourand files a detail-rich story on a possible Golf Channel-DirecTV break up December 31st.
DirecTV pays about 25 cents a subscriber a month to carry Golf Channel on its Choice Xtra tier, sources say. Golf Channel is looking for a license fee increase and is trying to keep DirecTV from putting it on a less-distributed tier.
DirecTV and Golf Channel still are negotiating and could reach an agreement by the end of the year. Or they could agree to an extension that would leave Golf Channel on DirecTV without a new deal.
And now we know who is watching those Big Break reruns...very few people! We also finally get answers as to why the Golf Channel recently dug deep into the Keanu Reeves oeuvre with repeated airings of the B-movie classic, Point Break.
But Golf Channel’s viewership, particularly out of season, has been low. In November, the channel ranked 78th of 90 cable networks in total-day viewership, averaging 55,000 viewers on a 24-hour basis. Of sports channels, only Fox Soccer, MLB Network and NBA TV ranked lower. Golf Channel ranked 80th out of 88 prime-time networks in November, averaging 83,000 viewers in prime time, ahead of Fox Soccer and MLB Network.