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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSAugust 2, 2010Mark SilvermanCHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE MODERATOR: Our next speaker is Big Ten Network President Mark Silverman. We have a video we will now watch. (Video) THE MODERATOR: After seeing all those wonderful new programs that are coming up on the Big Ten Network, we'll now hear from Network President Mark Silverman. MARK SILVERMAN: Hi, everybody. The network will be launching its fourth year coming this football season. It's amazing how quickly time goes. As you can tell from the clip, the network is just really now making the next step up. We're looking to produce more programming, better programming and just really keep improving as a network. The goal is really to give viewers a reason to watch us more than just their games, and I think this year's really our first time we're going to have a compelling reason for viewers to watch us on week nights. Following up on the success of the Big Ten basketball, The Journey, last spring, which was our highest rated series in our history, we're looking at rolling out a series of new shows this fall, some of which you saw. Including On the Next Level, The Big Ten Film Vault, which you saw clips of from. A new show called The Big Ten Pulse. And obviously Big Ten Icons hosted by Keith Jackson. And we're joined by four of our roaming mascots in the back of the room, as you can see. If everyone takes a look there, we've got four of our top 50 icons there to populate the area and give yourselves a little flavor of what's to come this fall. So that's really the goal, is just to add more relevant programming, mostly geared around the more popular sports that viewers are most interested in. Another major initiative that you saw on the network this past year is our Student U initiative. Through Student U we'll have about 300 additional events on the air on top of the 350 or so that we'll be televising live. These are produced by students who are paid workers to work on these shows. Every single university participated in Student U this past year and we're very proud of what we've been able to do. You'll notice a step-up in quality as we've upgraded our productions to be able to include some score and timing elements that we were unable to do in the past. So we're very happy about that. Now it's just a matter of continuing to grow, continuing to improve. It's only been three years. We've come a long way, but we're still a ways from where I think we can get to in the future. With that, we'll open it up to some questions. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Can you talk about your goals for the network and maybe the next five or ten years, and specifically 3D? Big Ten Network has been in HD since the beginning, but what do you see the role of 3D in your programming? MARK SILVERMAN: I'll answer it in two parts. First, we still want to be able to produce more and more relevant shows that we think our fans are most interested in. Produce our events at a higher quality level and put more of them on the air. Those are the three tenets of our programming strategy. Regarding 3D and other developments, where we're at the forefront of investigating all of that. I think there's still a ways to go before what you see in 3D in a movie theater will be available in that kind of level on your television screen. As somebody who was an early skeptic of HD, I feel kind of silly about that now. But at first I just didn't see it. I didn't get it. When we launched the network, we decided it was such a huge step up from SD that we didn't want to do anything in SD. And the network launched in HD three years ago. And if 3D becomes something that we think is an additive viewer experience, we're going to dive in and make sure we're able to bring those games in that kind of format. Q. One of the rationales for the whole expansion discussion was expanding the reach of the Big Ten Network. Nebraska is a fairly small state in terms of population. How does that get you in that area, help expand the reach with the Big Ten Network? MARK SILVERMAN: I don't know if I agree with the initial statement that the reason for expansion had anything to do with expanding the reach of the Big Ten Network. You can ask Commissioner Delany if that was the case. I think adding a program of the scale and quality of a Nebraska does more to us than I think anyone can really put into a specific, size of a specific market. I mean, Nebraska is as big ticket a football market nationally as there is. And being able to show Nebraska football games on our network is going to greatly increase the relevance of the network and the distribution of the network nationally over time, like few other schools would, in my opinion. So I think it's a much bigger additive element to the network than just adding a city that may have a couple hundred thousand more viewers, which given where we are today, that's not really what the goal is. The goal is to now create more of a national relevance for our games and for our teams. Q. If the Big Ten were to expand east still, what would that mean for the network? The East Coast corridor, New York, Boston, Maryland, DC? MARK SILVERMAN: With the expansion of Nebraska and any potential expansion, all we're focused on now is growing our interest level nationally and the relevance nationally. And anytime expansion, certain schools will do that more than others. We're still now -- we're very early in our growth cycle. And I know it's been a very action-filled three years of the network as we've gone through a lot of different phases of where we were and where we are now. But just like any other cable network, you grow your subscribers over time. You grow your interest level over time and your programming continues to improve. And whether we're set at 12 or whether the conference decides to expand, we still have a lot of growth ahead of us. I think the addition of Nebraska is just going to be a very valuable tool for the network, as we increase our relevance on a national stage. Q. (Question off microphone). MARK SILVERMAN: I think Nebraska does a lot to help us in the east. A national program is a national program. Goes back to what I said before. I think it's more important than where your specific team is located geographically. It's more important what's the stature of the program, how national is it in scope. I think a school like Nebraska just helps us east, west, and obviously every direction we can go. Q. What are the plans for this year, Big Ten Network, can you devote any kind of attention to Nebraska this year as far as -- obviously they're still a Big 12 school? MARK SILVERMAN: We've had some discussions about this. I think our goal is to begin to cover Nebraska this year. We're not planning on showing any live events from Nebraska. But I think we can cover them a little bit more and just gradually have Big Ten viewers become more accustomed to seeing Nebraska as we do our pre and post game shows, our nightly shows. There will be some coverage of Nebraska. It probably won't be on a nightly basis, but it will be more often than most of the other schools that are not in the Big Ten. Q. Mark, a question about Nebraska again. How do you handle the inventory? And do you have -- are they fully acclimated once they become, all their inventory is use for you? MARK SILVERMAN: All those conversations with Nebraska were just starting to get into. We're going to make a trip out there the last week of August with our executive team to meet with all the relevant people in Nebraska. We're just starting to scratch the surface of all that Nebraska brings with it and how it relates to the network. And we'll know more early fall as to exactly how that's going to all play out. Q. How would you characterize the reception so far of the nonrevenue sports that you guys have been showing? I think there's more available in the Big Ten than anywhere else. But what kind of fan feedback do you get? Has it been better than what you thought it would be? About what you thought it would be? Worse? MARK SILVERMAN: The interesting thing is all of the nonrevenue or Olympic sports, however you categorize all the sports, the impact I think has been much more significant than I would have realized. We show more women's events by far than any other conference in terms of having their games televised. The interest level from a national standpoint where women's volleyball programs, soccer programs, field hockey, can offer potential recruits on the West Coast, the south, the northeast, the opportunity to see their son or daughter play sports, which they never really would be able to have elsewhere, has a much bigger impact than I personally would have personally realized. And by now utilizing new technology and being able to increase the amount of games we do show on the network, it's just a great degree even more so how we can add to the value of those sports. And I think no one is really looking for the viewership of those sports to be at the level of a football or basketball. But the network doesn't really look for that to be the case. We like having live events. We like showing other sports on the network. We think it's a great overall brand addition to what the Big Ten is all about. Why there's a network for the Big Ten? It's more about than just the big sports, and we're happy to put them on the air. I think it's been, from what I understand from viewers and coaches of the Big Ten schools, a very nice positive for them. Q. Mark, you said you want to get better national exposure for the network. And one of the ways to do that is to get marquee games on the network. How do you balance that against having those games on networks like ABC that has coverage all across the country? MARK SILVERMAN: I think as the conference made their deal, there are certain games that we have as well as ESPN and ABC, and that is a goal that -- some goals you have are short-term goals and some are longer term. And I think what we're trying to do is get better, improve everything we're doing, improve the distribution so when the opportunity may become available to get those earlier selections or different level of games, we're in the right position to be able to take advantage of that. And we need to do what we can do now, which is focus on the games we do have and produce them in a high quality way. And you know the network, we show the same games, the same conference that ABC and ESPN which have been at this for so many years and are great at it. When you're a viewer, you're flipping back between a network like an ESPN and ABC and then us, who has only been around for three years. It's a high hurdle for us to live up to. And we've gotten better at it. We still have to make it a seamless transition, where a viewer really doesn't notice what network they're watching it on versus another network. We're not quite there. We're a big step up from where we've been. But we've got to get that done. That's what we can control today. And when we're able to do that and get ourselves better and better, I think I can make a better case then that we can have as big a game as might be out there at the Big Ten down the road sometime. Q. You guys are, I believe, for the first time showing a Big Ten nonconference road game, when Indiana goes to Western Kentucky. Is that an exception, or is that something that you guys are looking to do further to show some of these nonconference road games? MARK SILVERMAN: You know, this year, as you all know, the rights are tied up with a myriad of conferences and networks. And we only have the rights, obviously, to certain Big Ten home games. We were brought away that that game was not going to be televised and that we had an opportunity where the existing rights holders were going to be okay with us airing the game, and we were able to air it in a window where we weren't airing a game already. So a lot of things fell into place to air that particular game. I think I would look at it -- we were going to be opportunistic, if the opportunity is there, on occasion to show a road football game and a way where we're not violating the rights, obviously, of an existing rights holder. And it's not impacting the regularly scheduled games we have on the network. I think we're open to pursuing it more. Q. Could you explain your relationship a little bit with the olympic sports, as you call them, where the Big Ten doesn't have a league like hockey and Lacrosse, and how you pick what games are going on from those leagues? MARK SILVERMAN: That's right. There's two different categories. There's Big Ten, Official Big Ten Sports, where we have specified numbers of games we must air in our operating agreement with the conference. So volleyball, soccer, women's volleyball, men's and women's soccer. We have certain number of games we're required to televise. For other Big Ten sports that are not official sports, there's nothing that's specific. It's at the behest of the network and/or the university to determine if there are certain games that make sense for us to televise or not. And we look at our schedule. We look at who is competing well, what games are there that may be a higher profile game than others, what sports do we think we can grow as a network and increase viewership for and be relevant to a broader audience. So just a lot of factors that go in as we look at the schedules to determine, oh, let's do this event, or let's not do this event. So it's really a combination. It's more can we make the case ourselves that this is something that we should be doing. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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