Charter reaches agreement with Big Ten Network just in time to see Ohio State be totally awesome

Charter's next on the block to add the Big Ten Network and "related programming" in time for Saturday's football openers. No word whether or not this will include the HD version of the network, or if it will be in time for the start of the season, but it is definitely on the way. In a minor footnote, Charter mentioned that in addition to carrying the BTN across its systems in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Northern Illinois it's also reupping Jim Tressel's snazzy sweatervest collection, teaching Terrelle Pryor the correct name of "the University of Ohio State University" and teaching Ohio State how to defend against the spread offense. Good times all around.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 27th 2008 10:31AM]

Congratulations, Engadget HD! This is the very first post in a long time involving Charter that you didn't somehow work in a link to the post about them failing to deliver a 65-inch HDTV to a contest winner!

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 27th 2008 10:32AM]

Congratulations, Engadget HD! This is the very first post in a long time involving Charter that you didn't somehow work in a link to the post about them failing to deliver a 65-inch HDTV to a contest winner!

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 27th 2008 10:36AM]

Dick Tressel is Coach Jim Tressel's brother. Get it right haters!

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 27th 2008 11:13AM]

Ohio State be totally awesome...until they get drilled by an SEC team in another BCS bowl game. Oh well. At least you'll have fun in your regular season. I wish you luck against Youngstown State this weekend.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 27th 2008 11:05AM]

I have Charter in WI. I am so sick of the millions of sports channels we've been getting. Every week it seems we keep getting more and more channels that I could really care less about and my bill keeps going up. It's driving me mad. They had just added quite a few HD channels for the Olympics and then promptly removed them when it was over, but there is still no sign of Discovery HD or SciFi Channel HD..

If my bill goes up yet again because of this Big Ten deal I've had it.

Thankfully WI passed a change that no single carrier can monopolize a city, so it shouldn't be long to look for someone else to go to. I'm sick and tired of all these useless sports channels.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 27th 2008 11:30AM]

That's not entirely true. There has never been such a thing as an "exclusive franchise" in Wisconsin. That's a huge misconception the TV4US lobby group spread. The "Video Competition Act" was mainly pushed by TV4US so AT&T (a contributing member of the "grassroots organization") could do one agreement in the state versus going city-by-city like cable companies have done for years. If Comcast, Time Warner, Bright House, or whoever else wanted to come into your town to offer cable, they could have done so years ago, but they don't want to spend the money to build out a new infrastructure.

You may get AT&T coming to your town -- MAYBE -- but I wouldn't count on other cable companies doing so. And even if AT&T came to town, it's not going to be much cheaper (if at all) than what you're seeing now.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 27th 2008 11:30AM]

There is nothing more embarrassing as a member of the Big Ten than OSU's continued insistence that "the" be placed before their name. It's crass and quite frankly, pointless.

I'll echo Eric above in that the SEC will hopefully drill them down again. Nothing makes me feel better than seeing Ohio State get it shoved in their faces. Before someone asks, I'm not associated with UM or Notre Dame.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 27th 2008 11:40AM]

Damn Dick, Just because your team this year will finish 3-9 doesn't mean that you have to spew the hate! Its OK, OSU will pwn Michigan yet again! Oh and by the way, when THE Ohio State University wins the NC this year, you can't say I didn't tell ya!.. DICK!