NHL News: DirecTv no longer carrying Versus
The NHL can't be happy about this.
According to the LA Times, DirecTv has been running a crawl on Versus announcing that as of August 31st, they will no longer carry the channel due to poor ratings.
Highlights:
Five Pacific 10 Conference games (as yet undetermined) as well as an assortment of Big 12 and Mountain West games, and an NHL package of 54 games could become unavailable to DirecTV subscribers just when those seasons start. The first Pac-10 game on the Versus schedule will be Sept. 26.
Robert Mercer, director of public relations for DirecTV, said: "Versus' overall ratings are poor and have not increased nearly enough to justify what we're paying them, let alone the significant increase they're asking for.
"It is a significant rate hike and the deal is discriminatory because Versus is not offering the same package options as other distributors."
According to Nielsen ratings numbers, Versus is averaging 3,000 more viewers at any given time since rebranding itself from the Outdoor Life Network to Versus in 2006-2007. On DirecTV, Versus ranks 61st among 74 English-advertising supported cable networks.
I'm not sure how many people subscribe to DirecTv, but its a pretty significant number, and that's alot of people not watching 54 games this season.
Thank God I switched back to Comcast about 2 months ago.
