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Microcap & Penny Stocks : QuesTec.com (QSTI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greenie who wrote (734)	1/6/1998 4:37:00 PM
From: Greenie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2393

Found this in the Boston Globe. I think this will effect us. I like the FOX competition with ESPN. Think how much one or the other would like to have QSTI in their corner: Fox's Net hits snag with NESN By Howard Manly, Globe Staff, 01/06/98 Fox Sports Net has considered purchasing New England Sports Network as part of its national plans to control regional sports coverage and compete against ESPN for national advertising and possibly national rights for pro sports. But NESN's unresolved legal dispute between its former partners has scared away Fox. Fox Sports Net is a joint venture of Fox Inc., a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, and Liberty Media, the programming arm of Tele-Communications Inc. With its recent launch of Fox Sports Detroit, Fox Sports Net owns and runs 10 sports channels, owns equity in seven more, and has affiliation agreements to show programming in five others. In Boston, Fox Sports Net has an equity stake in SportsChannel New England, which it plans to rename Fox Sports New England later this month, and an affiliate relationship with NESN, a premium cable station that is under agreement to run Fox programming for the next two years. Local cable stations have rights to three major local teams: NESN has the Red Sox and Bruins while SportsChannel has the Celtics. As the thinking goes, Fox Sports Net would rather operate under one station than two. NESN general manager John Claiborne said, ''It makes sense,'' for Fox to purchase NESN but he added that there have been no discussions between Fox and NESN's board of directors. NESN is jointly owned by the Red Sox, Bruins, and Channel 38. With 48 percent, the Red Sox hold the majority interest. But the partnership turned ugly two years ago. In the suit filed in US District Court, Channel 38's owner charged that the Red Sox and Bruins had reneged on a longstanding agreement over how much the teams receive in cable rights fees from NESN. The dispute came just months after the Red Sox dumped Channel 38, their local broadcaster for 21 years, and switched to Channel 68. The Sox and Bruins wanted to expand their rights fee on games on basic cable, from 1 or 2 cents per subscriber per telecast to 11 cents, the amount they get from NESN. Channel 38 surprisingly went to court instead of responding to the invitation for a counterproposal. Channel 38 claims the higher rights fees would be more than unfair, closer to outrageous, because NESN gets an average of only 40 cents per telecast for each basic cable subscriber, in contrast to around $4 per subscriber per telecast, 10 times the basic cable amount. As rights fees for each increase, the money would be drawn from the overall profit of the NESN partnership, of which Channel 38 owns 20 percent. Since NESN was formed in 1982, the two teams each have worn two hats: as part-owners of NESN and as suppliers of its programming content. Channel 38 also wore a second hat, as NESN's supplier of production equipment and services. Fox would consider purchasing NESN when its legal issues are cleared. A similar scenario played out in Detroit. Last July, the Pro-Am Sports Systems, a subsidiary of the Washington Post Co., was the only regional sports channel available to 1.6 million cable homes in Michigan and Northern Ohio. PASS owned the rights to the Red Wings, Pistons, and Tigers. Last fall, PASS faded to black. The reason was Fox Sports Net, which secured the rights to each of the teams. The other problem with buying NESN is that the Red Sox, NESN's majority shareholder, might not agree to sell. Jim Healey, a Red Sox vice president, said NESN ''is not for sale.'' This story ran on page E03 of the Boston Globe on 01/06/98. c Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.