TORONTO – TSN2 has finally found a home on the Rogers cable lineup.
The companies reached an agreement over the weekend after months of negotiation. TSN2 will be available to Rogers’ subscribers on a free preview basis on its digital channel 1, beginning Tuesday.
At the end of the month, TSN2 will move to its permanent channel location on channel 98, where it will be available to Rogers Digital VIP cable subscribers. As part of the agreement, customers must subscribe to TSN and have the HDTV Specialty Theme Pak to receive TSN2 HD. The cable giant is also launching TSN’s French sister station RDS HD.
"We are thrilled to have a deal in place to bring TSN2 to Rogers customers," said Phil King, president of TSN, in the press release. "TSN has always been about giving fans more choice when it comes to watching live sports. Our agreement with Rogers now gives their customers access to hundreds of exclusive live events each year – including NHL, NBA action along with every inning from this week’s highly anticipated Jays-Red Sox series."
Rogers was the final holdout among English Canadian distributors when it came to carrying the second TSN. But the CTV-owned sports network got some powerful leverage when it announced plans to air this week’s key three-game series featuring the Rogers-owned Toronto Blue Jays taking on the Boston Red Sox in a battle for first place.
TSN2 has exclusive coverage of the series beginning Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET on digital channel 1 and for analog customers on channel 59.
"We’d like to thank our customers for their patience as we worked hard towards an agreement that would offer choice and the widest possible variety of programming," said David Purdy, Rogers’ vice president of television services, in a press release. "We are always looking at new services and channels to bring to our customers, and TSN2 was one part of the negotiations to offer a wide range of sports, and HD programming."
