Court TV, TechTV and Game Show Network last week said they had achieved significant gains in distribution over the previous 12 months.

Court TV, which is owned by AOL Time Warner and Liberty Media, said its number of total subscribers had increased to 65,994,000, an increase of 15 million subscribers since December 2000, a 32% gain. Only Fox News Channel and FX, among those networks with more than 50 million subscribers, have grown faster over the last year, according to estimates from Kagan World Media and the network itself. (Kagan, the newsletter and databook publisher, is, like Cable World, owned by Media Central.)

Meanwhile, TechTV reported a 20% uptick in its subscriber base in the past year, bringing its total to 28 million households and its affiliate count to 3,700 systems. The technology-centered channel, owned by Microsoft founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., recently reached agreements with Cablevision Systems and Cable One for carriage on their digital tiers.

?Our new distribution agreements create fantastic opportunities for TechTV to deliver its first-class technology content to thousands of new viewers,? said Peter Gochis, VP-affiliate sales for TechTV, in a statement. Since November 1999, when TechTV was fully acquired by Vulcan, which also owns No. 4 operator Charter Communications, the network has seen its distribution increase by more than 75%.

Game Show Network (GSN), a joint venture of Liberty Digital and Sony Pictures Entertainment, passed the important 40-million-sub milestone last week. The network's universe estimate from November, according to Nielsen Media Research, was 40,235,000, which is more than 10 million better than November 2000 and almost double its subscribership of November 1999. Launches on such systems as Time Warner in Manhattan, Comcast Philadelphia and Cox Phoenix helped propel its progress.

Given that it doesn't have other network siblings to use as leverage in contract negotiations, Game Show has been more dependent on broadband initiatives and local ad opportunities to lure operators.

?We have achieved the 40-million milestone and cemented relationships with every major cable and satellite distributor in the United States by thinking outside of the box,? said Anne Droste, GSN SVP-sales/affiliate relations, in a release.

Back to this issue