Launched March 17, 1999 Language English | Country United States | |
Owned by National Basketball Association
(operated by the Turner Broadcasting System) (Time Warner) Picture format 1080i (HDTV) 16:9
(HD feed downgraded to letterboxed 480i for SDTV sets) Slogan Big Games. Big Moments. TV shows Inside the NBA, Shaqtin' a Fool, Hardwood Classics, NBA Inside Stuff, NBA Gametime Live | ||
NBA TV is an American sports-oriented cable and satellite television network that is owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner; the NBA also uses the network as a way of advertising the league's out-of-market sports package NBA League Pass, and partner channel TNT. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regular season and playoff game telecasts from the NBA and related professional basketball leagues, as well as NBA-related content including analysis programs, specials and documentaries. The network also serves as national broadcaster of the NBA D-League and WNBA games. NBA TV is the oldest cable network in North America to be owned or controlled by a professional sports league, having launched on March 17, 1999.
Contents
- History
- Carriage agreements
- Programming
- List of programs broadcast by NBA TV
- High definition
- Personalities
- Studio hosts
- Studio analysts
- Contributors
- Other hosts
- Former hosts and analysts
- NBA TV International
- Criticism
- References
As of February 2015, NBA TV is available to approximately 57,129,001 households that subscribe to cable, satellite or telco television service (totaling 49.1% of households with at least one television set) in the United States. The highest measured audience was a Golden State Warriors vs San Antonio Spurs regular season game on April 10, 2016 with an average 2.6 million viewers.
History
The network launched on March 17, 1999 as nba.com TV; the channel, which was renamed NBA TV on February 11, 2003, originally operated from studio facilities housed at NBA Entertainment in Secaucus, New Jersey. The network signed a multi-year carriage agreement with three of the U.S.'s five largest cable providers, Cox Communications, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable, on June 28, 2003; this expanded the network's reach to 45 million pay television households in the U.S., in addition to distribution in 30 countries worldwide. After Time Warner shut down the sports news network CNN/SI in 2002, many cable providers replaced that network with NBA TV.
On October 8, 2007, it was reported that the National Basketball Association would transfer the channel's operations to Time Warner's Turner Sports division (operated by the company's Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary). In a story published by Hoopsworld: "NBATV: Surprisingly there has been little said about the NBA's decision to sell off NBATV to one of its media partners. Talks had gone on for sometime [sic] as ESPN/ABC and Turner both explored scenarios with the league. Ultimately it seems Turner has won out, and will take over operation of the league's flagship cable channel, that reaches some 12 million subscribers. The exact changeover date is not clear, but several months ago a Bloomberg report cited sources saying senior level producers were offered contract buyouts in September."
Turner took over the channel's operations on October 28, 2008, and began using the same announcers and analysts used on TNT's NBA telecasts. Analysis and news programming also received an upgrade, with production of the programs being relocated to Studio B at Turner Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, located adjacent to Studio J, where TNT's post-game program Inside the NBA is broadcast.
Carriage agreements
On April 16, 2009, DirecTV announced that it had reached a carriage agreement with the NBA to continue carrying NBA TV, moving it (and out-of-market sports package NBA League Pass) from the satellite provider's Sports Pack add-on tier to its lower-priced Choice Xtra base package on October 1, 2009. DirecTV believed the move will make the channel available to an additional eight million subscribers.
On June 4, 2009, Comcast announced that it had reached an agreement with the NBA to move the channel from the cable provider's Sports Entertainment Package to its basic level Digital Classic package, by the start of the 2009-10 NBA season. Like DirecTV, Comcast estimated that an additional eight million customers would effectively gain access to the channel. Verizon FiOS added the channel and NBA League Pass to its systems on September 23, 2009. The network also signed new multi-year agreements with Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and Dish Network on October 22, 2009, as well as a renewal agreement with Cox Communications earlier in the year.
With all of the above carriage deals, the NBA estimates that it would increase NBA TV's overall subscriber reach to 45 million cable and satellite television homes. On October 29, 2010, AT&T U-verse reached a carriage deal to carry the channel's standard definition and high definition feeds.
NBA TV is not currently available on legacy Charter Communications systems, which carried the network as NBA.com TV prior to 2004, due to unknown carriage conflicts; NBA League Pass is also not carried by Charter (on May 18, 2016, Charter acquired Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks for $78.7 billion, which both carry the network). NBA TV is available to Charter households where available as of February 2017, if a customer switches to the new 'Spectrum' billing plan which will unite Charter, Time Warner and Bright House under the Spectrum branding (this is all likely unrelated to Charter's inherited naming rights of the Charlotte Hornets' home arena, the Spectrum Center).
Programming
NBA TV offers news programs devoted to basketball daily, in addition to programs showcasing the lives of individual basketball players, documentaries focusing on a particular NBA team during the season and archived broadcasts of well-known games.
NBA TV carries at least 90 regular season games per season, which typically air four days a week during the NBA season (mainly on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays, although occasional Wednesday, Friday and Sunday games may air in the event that ESPN does not hold rights to coverage on those nights), as well as some first-round playoff games.
Live games on NBA TV are subject to local blackout restrictions, since NBA TV (despite being owned by the league) does not hold the exclusive broadcast rights to any of its games. Games carried by NBA TV are also carried by each team's local rights holder, either a regional sports network or a broadcast television station.
Beginning with the 2012-13 season, the score box displayed during NBA TV's game coverage (which was seen on the lower-left hand corner of the screen) changed to a banner format oriented horizontally across the screen. However, the network does not use timeout or bonus indicators like that seen on the score graphics used on ESPN and TNT.
The network also shows international games, typically on Saturday evenings, with special emphasis on the Euroleague and the Maccabi Tel Aviv team from Israel. In April 2005, NBA TV televised the Chinese Basketball Association finals for the first time.
The channel's flagship program is NBA Gametime Live, a program focusing on news headlines within the NBA and related leagues (including the WNBA and the National Basketball Development League), highlights and look-ins at games currently in progress presented by a host and studio analysts. The show airs live six days a week, deferring on Thursday nights to TNT and not airing that evening. An edited 90-minute version of the broadcast is repeated during the overnight and early morning hours. The network premiered the original documentary The Dream Team on June 13, 2013.
List of programs broadcast by NBA TV
High definition
NBA TV HD is a 1080i high definition simulcast feed of NBA TV that is available on most providers. All studio programs and original programs are shot in HD, and all live games and recent game rebroadcasts are televised in HD. During certain programs that are not available in HD (such as older game footage), unique stylized pillarboxes are used, displaying the NBA logo with the "NBA TV" text under it, or alternatively, just the "NBA TV" text oriented sideways, both shown in black and gray.
On December 25, 2011, concurrent with TNT converting its NBA telecasts to the format, NBA TV began using the AFD #10 broadcast flag to present programming on its standard definition feed in letterboxed widescreen for viewers watching on cable television through 4:3 television sets.
Personalities
The studio host and analysts vary on each night's broadcast of NBA Gametime.
Studio hosts
Studio analysts
Contributors
Other hosts
Former hosts and analysts
NBA TV International
NBA TV International is a feed of NBA TV available in countries outside of the United States, utilizing the same studio for analysis and commentary segments and taped programming (except for FIBA events and highlights), but largely airs a different lineup of games than the U.S. channel. NBA TV International shows one or two games per day, with the exception of NBA playoff (except 1st and 2nd rounds of the playoffs) including conference finals and the NBA Finals and most nationally televised U.S. games (such as those seen on ABC, TNT, ESPN and US feed of NBA TV); the rights to those games are instead sold to domestic television networks in each territory.
As of 2010, NBA TV International can be seen in 40 countries via the following partners:
NBA TV Canada, a Canadian version of the channel, carries some of the same game broadcasts as the flagship U.S. service, ESPN, and TNT instead of the secondary game package found on NBA TV International.
In October 2010, NBA Premium TV was launched in the Philippines. It is a redirect broadcast of NBA TV and airs locally televised and nationally televised games in the United States.
In February 2012, NBA TV International was made available on NBA.TV as an internet subscription channel outside of the United States.
On beIN Channels Network in the Arab World, NBA TV itself is not available. However, beIN Sports NBA is a separate channel in HD which airs several of the same games broadcast on NBA TV.
Criticism
NBA TV has been criticized for its usage of announcers from the local broadcast holders during the playoffs, merely using an audio feed that is intended to be broadcast within the team's designated market area on a regional sports network. In 2012, the network announced it would be producing its own playoff broadcasts and would not merely simulcast a local feed.