Ice hockey heads programming on fast-rising CSTV

What is the only college sports media company that broadcasts college sports exclusively and is now in its third year of operation?

No clue? Well, you’re probably not the only one.

Despite its success, rapid growth, and pronounced presence on both satellite and cable TV, broadband, the Internet, and satellite radio, College Sports TV is still a relative unknown to sports fans and viewers alike.

“Perception is everything and we’re changing that little by little,” said Tim Pernetti, CSTV senior vice-president of programming and talent. “We’re not just a network, we’re also a media company that only does college sports. We have an online network and we do Web sites for more than 270 schools and conferences.”

Not bad for a network that started out as one exclusively distributed on DirecTV.

“We’re the fastest-growing independent cable network ever,” said Pernetti, who was director of programming for ABC Sports before joining CSTV. “Now, we’re a network available in 60 million homes and virtually every cable system including DirecTV, Dish Network, Comcast Cable, Time-Warner cable, Cox Cable, Charter, Insight, Adelphia, and several smaller systems.”

In Maine, the two primary cable TV companies – Adelphia and Time-Warner – both offer CSTV as part of their digital premium or add-on packages. Adelphia subscribers with basic cable service and a digital decoder box can add the digital-plus package with CSTV included for an extra $10 per month. Time-Warner customers with basic and the box can get CSTV on the sports package for an extra $1.95 monthly.

CSTV has garnered name recognition in Maine due to its ambitious college hockey programming.

“We launched on April 7, 2003, and we started the Friday Hockey Night franchise that fall,” Pernetti said. “I believe we had a Maine game on in our first month of coverage.”

CSTV airs 35 sports in its programming schedule – which ranges from traditional headliner sports such as football and basketball to rodeo (yes, college rodeo), rugby, club Frisbee, and even debate team championships – but has identified most closely with hockey.

“Friday night hockey has become an institution for us and our college hockey package is our signature sport,” said Pernetti, a former varsity football player at Rutgers University. “The first year, we delivered about 23 games in the regular season along with the women’s Frozen Four. Last year, we went to 30 games plus conference championships and the women’s Frozen Four.”

This year, CSTV is set to carry 40 games plus the Central Collegiate Hockey Association tournament men’s and women’s finals, the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference men’s semifinals and finals, the women’s Frozen Four, and the NCAA Div. III title game.

“There are various things you want to hang your hat on. We made a commitment to invest in college hockey and they have reciprocated by investing in us,” Pernetti said. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.”

The CSTV sports empire stretches beyond the TV realm. CSTV.com streams more than 5,000 college sports events a year, and the 270 college Web sites it administers get 150 million page views a month from seven million unique listeners, according to Pernetti.

Last September, CSTV.com had the highest year-over-year and month-over-month audience growth of all networks with nearly 6.5 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen Netratings.

Supplementing CSTV.com is CSTV All Access, a broadband network of 183 athletic sites for universities and conferences which is the top online source for college sports broadband content such as news, information, features, statistics, analysis, and scores, according to a CSTV press release. Subscriptions to this service have tripled since last year, Pernetti said.

The fourth part of the burgeoning CSTV empire is CSTV-Sirius Satellite Radio, the first college sports radio network.

It’s all these facets and its two-year head start on ESPN-U – ESPN’s new spinoff network that specializes in college sports coverage – that make the debut of ESPN-U this year less of a threat to CSTV.

“People compare the two, but we go deeper into those 35 sports than anyone else,” said Pernetti. “I wouldn’t compare the two. It’s not a zero sum game. We don’t look at them as a competitor because their focus is very different, on specific things and there’s plenty of sports to go around.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or at aneff@bangordailynews.net