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Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia (sometimes abbreviated as CSN Philadelphia) is an American regional sports network that is owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by locally based cable television provider Comcast (and owns a controlling 75% interest), and the Philadelphia Phillies (which owns the remaining 25%). It is the flagship owned-and-operated outlet of Comcast SportsNet. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of professional sports teams in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, as well as college sports events and original sports-related news, discussion and entertainment programming. CSN Philadelphia is available on cable and fiber optic television providers throughout southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey and most of Delaware. The network maintains main studios and offices located inside the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia's South Philadelphia district; it also operates a small secondary studio inside Citizens Bank Park, which is used sporadically during Major League Baseball season. ==History== The network traces its history to Comcast's March 19, 1996, when acquired Spectacor and a 66% interest in its primary assets – the Philadelphia Flyers, The Spectrum and the then-recently completed CoreStates Center – for $240 million and the assumption of a collective $170 million in debt; the new Comcast Spectacor (which appointed the company's previous majority owner, Edward M. Snider, as its chairman) also immediately purchased a 66% interest in the Philadelphia 76ers. Immediately after the purchase was announced, speculation arose as to whether Comcast would let at least some of Spectacor's television contracts with premium cable network PRISM and existing regional sports network SportsChannel Philadelphia (both owned by Rainbow Media) run out, and create a sports network of its own, displacing both existing networks from Comcast and other cable providers in Southeastern Pennsylvania (Comcast, however, had reached a ten-year agreement with Rainbow to continue carriage of PRISM and SportsChannel, as well as the company's other networks in the fall of 1995); buy the existing networks; or reach a complex deal with Rainbow to have both networks retain the broadcast rights to the 76ers and Flyers. Within days of the purchase, Comcast indicated that was considering launching a new RSN, and approached the Philadelphia Phillies about entering into a broadcast deal.〔 PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia's joint contract to carry most of the Flyers' NHL games was set to end that fall, while the Phillies' contract ended after the 1997 season, leaving them both open to enter negotiations with Comcast Spectacor. After short-lived discussions between Rainbow Media and Comcast about the latter possibly becoming a part-owner in PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia, on April 25, 1996, Comcast Spectacor formally announced plans to create a new Philadelphia-centric sports network, which would carry both the Flyers; it also signed a deal with the Phillies, giving the new network rights to most of their Major League Baseball games. The deal strained relations between Rainbow and Comcast Spectacor somewhat; Rainbow offered a lower bid for the Flyers telecast rights during negotiations for a one-year extension of its contract. Disagreements between the Flyers and Rainbow Media over the amount the team would receive for the 1996-97 season contract, led the Flyers to announce plans in late September that it would assume production responsibilities for its home game broadcasts and sell the local rights to its game telecasts to individual cable providers as a backup plan if deal did not come to fruition. Rainbow and Comcast Spectacor finally reached a one-year, $5 million contract extension to keep its locally televised games on PRISM and SportsChannel on October 4, 1996, the day before its season home opener. On July 21, 1997, Comcast acquired the local television rights to broadcast the 76ers' NBA games on the new Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, with the team choosing to opt out of its contract with PRISM and SportsChannel that was set to run until the 1999-2000 season. After much uncertainty, which included plans for PRISM and SportsChannel to become affiliates of Fox Sports Net (after News Corporation and Liberty Media purchased 40% of the sports assets owned by Rainbow parent Cablevision on June 30, 1997), Comcast then reached agreements with Liberty and Rainbow Media to replace PRISM with the Liberty-owned premium movie channel Starz! (which at the time, was starting to expand its carriage outside of systems operated by its then co-owner Tele-Communications, Inc.). Reports indicated that Comcast SportsNet initially would charge a per subscriber rate of $1.50 a month (representatives for Comcast Spectacor stated the rate was closer to the range of $1.20 to $1.35) to participating cable providers, described as "one of the most expensive – if not the most expensive" basic cable channel in the United States (a disctintion that was eventually assumed by the nationally distributed ESPN); SportsChannel Philadelphia, by comparison, charged providers that carried the network between 25¢ and 35¢ a month per subscriber. The company's demand that CSN Philadelphia be offered as a basic cable service resulted in complaints by some local providers (including Wade Cable, Lower Bucks Cablevision and Harron Communications) because of the higher per subscriber rate, however Jack Williams, who was appointed as the original president of CSN Philadelphia, said that the company would "not accept any arrangement other than running SportsNet as a basic channel." By September 1997, CSN had secured cable coverage reaching approximately 1.5 million households (or 60% of the network's regional territory). Williams promised that the network would carry more local programming than other regional sports networks, with an estimated seven to eight hours of live sports, and various news and discussion programs (including a four-hour morning sports news program, and news and interview program in the late afternoon).〔 Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia launched on October 1, 1997, replacing SportsChannel Philadelphia on local cable systems within the Philadelphia metropolitan area; with the launch, Comcast SportsNet became the Philadelphia affiliate of Fox Sports Net. Comcast expanded the Comcast SportsNet brand to other markets over the next several years, through the purchases of Fox Sports regional networks in San Francisco and Boston as well as the launches of new channels in markets such as Chicago, Houston and northern California. With Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011, Comcast SportsNet was also integrated into the new NBC Sports Group unit, culminating with the addition of the peacock logo and an updated graphics package to mirror that of its parent network. The updated graphics were implemented on CSN's live game coverage and all studio shows, with the exception of ''SportsNet Central''. In September 2012, Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia and its sister Comcast SportsNet outlets ceased carrying Fox Sports Networks-supplied programming, after failing to reach an agreement to continue carrying FSN's nationally distributed programs. On January 2, 2014, as part of an agreement reached on a 25-year broadcasting contract with the team (with the network paying the team US$100 million in rights fees each season through 2041, totaling around US$2.5 billion), the Philadelphia Phillies acquired a 25% equity stake in Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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