Lakers Channel Broadens Focus as Team Drops Ball

0
Lakers Channel Broadens Focus as Team Drops Ball
Widening Net: Mark Shuken at Time Warner Cable SportsNet’s El Segundo studio.

As the Los Angeles Lakers’ season tipped off last week, the team’s home for local broadcasts was hoping for a ratings rebound.

After a falloff in viewership at the tail end of last season, Time Warner Cable SportsNet made efforts in the off-season to reinvigorate its offerings. The El Segundo sports channel’s first Lakers broadcast of the season was Oct. 29, a 119-99 loss to the Phoenix Suns.

“We really invested in the off-season to make sure folks see us hit the ground running,” said Mark Shuken, senior vice president and general manager at Time Warner Cable Sports Networks.

Those investments include the rollout of an updated mobile app offering on-demand programming and Twitter integration as well as a revamped website. The channel’s other off-season moves included hiring former Laker and 16-year National Basketball Association veteran Antawn Jamison as an on-air host and changing the channel’s graphics for a sleeker look.

But the bells and whistles will only keep viewers engaged so long, and the challenge for the channel will be to maintain ratings over the six-month season if the Lakers perform – as expected – at or near the bottom of the Western Conference. Last season, viewership of the channel’s game broadcasts cratered as the team was eliminated from playoff contention.

Last season’s first game on SportsNet was watched by about 331,000 people. By April the broadcasts averaged only about 81,000. That was quite a comedown from the prior season. In April 2013, as the Lakers were making a playoff push, the channel’s broadcasts had their highest-rated month, with an average of 519,000 people tuning in.

Still, despite last season’s losing record, the Lakers were still one of the biggest draws in the NBA. Only the New York Knicks had a higher average number of viewers for local telecasts, according to the Sports Business Journal.

SportsNet carries all of the Lakers games not available on national television. It also carries supplemental team coverage, related shows and Galaxy pro soccer and Sparks women’s basketball games. Its companion Spanish-language channel, Time Warner Cable SportsNet Deportes, offers similar programming. Both channels are available on pay-TV services as far north as Fresno and in Hawaii and parts of Nevada.

Among the programs it uses to stoke interest is weekly reality show “Backstage: Lakers,” which is intended to give greater access to the team with behind-the-scenes footage.

“That’s a better model than the traditional model of show the games and go away,” said Ed Desser, president at Santa Monica consultancy Desser Sports Media, who advised the Lakers on the team’s 2011 TV rights deal with Time Warner Cable.

Shuken said despite falling ratings, advertising revenue grew last season and he predicted the same for this season as advertisers are more interested in being involved with Lakers games long term rather than worrying about ratings for any given broadcast.

Big bet

To see the channels succeed, Time Warner Cable has poured in major money.

It signed a 20-year deal for the exclusive rights to local Lakers broadcasts in 2011 for a reported $3 billion. The following year, the cable company launched the English- and Spanish-language channels from an industrial area in El Segundo near the Lakers’ practice facility.

To break even on the cost of the Lakers rights, the channels would need to bring in $150 million a year in distribution fees and ad revenue. Shuken wouldn’t comment on financial specifics but said the Lakers and Time Warner Cable are both happy with the business of the channels.

He said that he’s optimistic about this season, based in part on strong preseason ratings.

“We’ve seen greater (viewer) interest in this preseason than we have for prior preseasons,” he said.

Engaging viewers in what is expected to be a season of modest expectations won’t be easy – and is more difficult still because the new digital offerings won’t be available for a couple of more weeks.

Most of the channel’s revenue comes from distribution fees paid by carriers such as DirecTV. Time Warner Cable secured distribution deals for the channels with all of the major local pay-TV providers, other than Dish Network, in 2012. Carriers pay about $4 a month for each subscriber, though that rate declines in outlying areas.

(Time Warner Cable’s other major sports rights outlay – the reported $8.35 billion it paid for the 25-year Dodgers broadcast rights – could end in a big loss if distributors continue to not pay for the Dodgers-only SportsNet LA.)

Advertising and sponsorships are typically smaller sources of revenue for regional sports networks. The goal is often to grow that side of the business to match revenue that comes in from distribution fees. SportsNet’s new advertisers this year include Facebook and 1800 Tequila.

Shuken acknowledged that there is no better way to draw viewers than to have a winning team. But he’s hoping that some of the changes at the channel, such as the app update, will at least help to keep viewers’ attention.

Desser said even in an off-year, Lakers games can offer advertisers a larger audience than most other teams.

“Even if they’re down, they’re still higher than most other teams,” he said.

No posts to display