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Comcast signs to carry FX, FNC
November 30, 2000:
Los Angeles -- Comcast Corp. has closed major distribution agreements to launch News Corp.'s FX and Fox News Channel, officials said.
For FX, Comcast becomes the last of the top 10 MSOs to agree to broadly distribute the channel. The contract will take FX's distribution to more than 65 million homes within three years, up from its current 56 million.
Under the deal, Comcast will roll out FX to roughly 80 percent of its homes, on basic or expanded basic, according to Lindsay Gardner, executive vice president of affiliate
sales and marketing for Fox Cable Networks Group.
Gardner said a big factor in Comcast doing the FX deal was the fact that the network will be carrying National Association for Stock Car Racing coverage.
Comcast has clusters in markets where that sport is popular, such as the Southeast and Michigan, he noted.
In fact, FX -- which acquired the rights to NASCAR along with several other networks -- jockeyed to arrange to air the Michigan 500 race in part because it takes place in
Detroit, a Comcast market, according to Gardner.
FX is now carried in roughly 3 million Comcast homes, and the new deal calls for an incremental rollout of the network to at least double that amount by year-end 2003.
Comcast's distribution agreement for FNC calls for the all-news channel to be rolled out to a majority of the MSO's customers in major markets over the next three years. The
operator recently launched the service in Baltimore and Sarasota, Fla.
- 11/30/00
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