John Henry, NESN and NECN?

[wickedwritah]

John Henry owns NESN but also now owns a pretty big newspaper -- one that has in the past and could feed a lot of content to NECN, which seems to be the red-headed stepchild of Comcast.

Comcast would love to grab the Sox and Bruins, somehow.

Any chance Henry gives a piece of NESN to Comcast, lets it run a combined NESN/CSNNE, and takes control of NECN, tying it in more closely with the Globe?

 

[johnster]

I think Comcast used to own some of NESN? When Sportschannel was part of Cablevision I think NESN had Continental Cablevision partnered in there with the Bruins and Sox? Now both became Comcast eventually but Continental->MediaOne->ATTBroadband->Comcast I think got there first. Not sure if this is accurate when they got out.

 

[wickedwritah]

Third partner in NESN was Channel 38. Sox bought their share long ago.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Would FCC rules prohibit John Henry from buying WEEI-93.7/850 because of newspaper/radio cross-ownership??

 

[raccoonradio]

He may be buying the Globe as a private individual whereas the team as a "group" could buy the station(s); not sure about the whole cross-ownership deal

http://www.adweek.com/news/press/fcc-about-take-first-step-lifting-cross-ownership-ban-145206

more recently, Feb :
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/02/fcc_holds_key_to_cross_ownership_rule
>>The FCC in November floated a proposal that included dropping “outdated prohibitions on newspaper-radio and TV-radio cross ownership.” A vote was supposed to be taken in December, but has been delayed.

 

[reelyreal]

A waiver could be granted as has happened many times. It won't happen though, because Entercom would sell the whole cluster or nothing at all. No cluster would sell off part of itself to create ANOTHER competitor. That'd just be flat out moronic, which is why it doesn't happen.

 

[Smoke]

Henry has more money than brains, maybe he'll burn a few tens of millions on a channel too?