University of Hawaii sports will share a new channel, OCSports (12/1012), with other programming on Oceanic Time Warner Cable beginning with Friday’s Rainbow Wahine soccer match, the company announced Wednesday.
In addition, Oceanic likely will end up subleasing the feeds of a wide range of its UH sports programming to rival Hawaiian Telcom shortly.
Hawaiian Telcom did not say when it will launch its anticipated UH lineup but it has confirmed it will offer the same football-basketball pay-per-view package at the same prices as Oceanic and is in negotiations for other events.
Oceanic, which replaces KFVE as the producer of UH sports after 28 years, said it expects to show approximately 100 events in the 2011-12 school year, starting with the UH-Washington State soccer match. The OCSports channel will be part of Oceanic’s basic package, president Bob Barlow said.
UH is guaranteed $2.3 million annually from Oceanic for the rights to its sports.
Oceanic wouldn’t comment on the balance of the programming planned for OCSports except to say, “It will be other local content that will be of interest to people in Hawaii.”
It already operates OC 16 as a platform for high school sports, which it has shown for 23 years.
The first UH football game Oceanic will carry will be the Sept. 10 meeting at Washington, which will be part of a 17-game football-basketball pay-per-view menu on channels 255 and 1255 (high definition).
Oceanic took over UH rights from KFVE this summer, but its launch has been complicated by two events. The first was a decision by the U. S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., allowing the Federal Communications Commission to require regional sports networks to share programming with other video providers. Shortly afterward, Hawaiian Telcom was granted a 15-year franchise by the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.
Oceanic negotiated a sublicense to allow Hawaiian Telcom to purchase its PPV inventory, but the two were locked in a struggle over whether other events would also be sublicensed. Hawaiian Telcom had threatened to file a complaint with the FCC.
On Wednesday, Hawaiian Telcom said no complaint had been filed and Oceanic said a proposal had been made to Hawaiian Telcom covering the remaining events.