Big Ten Network remains missing
The customer, apparently, is not always right.
Although Steubenville is in the heart of Big Ten country, with a high percentage of Ohio State University sports fans running about, Comcast says it's unable to provide a place for the Big Ten Network on the city's cable system.
It's available in a variety of area communities, including tiny Rayland and tiny Adena. It's even on the cable in Weirton, where the Big East ought to rule the day for fans of WVU, but the capacity isn't available to carry the channel in Steubenville.
If we go back to the Big Ten Network's founding season, about a year ago, the argument was one about how much the channel should cost each subscriber. There was haggling over whether the channel should be on the expanded basic tier or on a special sports tier, where only those who really wanted to pay to watch all the Big Ten sports they could possibly stand could pay for it.
A year later, the Big Ten Network has reached agreements in many places, including with Time Warner in Columbus where even the hometown folks are finally being permitted to see all the Buckeyes games they were able to see before the Big Ten made its foray into the television business.
The point remains that fans of Big Ten schools are seeing less of their favorite university's games than they saw before the athletic conference decided to make a buck as a broadcaster. If you're planning on watching the season-opening Buckeyes game in Steubenville Saturday, you will need a pal in Adena or Rayland or Weirton.
It's the old story that has existed since cable channels first started coming about.
Area TV watchers might remember when it took a heavy amount of protesting from the Steubenville cable subscriber community to have the cable operator at that time put the Catholic EWTN channel on the cable system - in the hometown of a major Catholic university and the see city of the Diocese of Steubenville.
It simply seems that there ought to be a solution here that enables the Ohio State fan to see the Buckeyes without having to move to Adena or Rayland.
A little political pressure went a long way back in the fight for EWTN.
The customer, after all, still has something to say.
