SportsTime Ohio

SportsTime Ohio
Launched March 12, 2006
Network Fox Sports Networks
Owned by Fox Entertainment Group
(21st Century Fox)
Picture format 1080i (HDTV)
480i (SDTV)
Country United States
Language English
Broadcast area Cleveland/Northern Ohio
Central Ohio
National (via satellite)
Headquarters Cleveland, Ohio
Sister channel(s) Fox Sports Ohio
Website SportsTimeOhio.com
Availability
Satellite
DirecTV 662 (SD/HD)
Dish Network 421-21 (SD)
412-21 (HD)
Cable
Time Warner Cable (Cleveland) 36 / 308 (SD)
1308 (HD)
WOW! (Cleveland) 72 (SD)
221 (HD)
Time Warner Cable (Columbus) 34 / 308 (SD)
1308 (HD)
WOW! (Columbus) 57 (SD)
221 (HD)
Available on most other Ohio cable systems Consult your local cable provider or program listings source for channel availability
IPTV
AT&T U-verse 735 (SD)
1735 (HD)
Streaming media
Fox Sports Go www.foxsportsgo.com/
(U.S. cable internet subscribers only; requires login from participating providers to stream content; some events may not be available due to league rights restrictions)

SportsTime Ohio (STO) (also sometimes referred to on-air as Fox SportsTime Ohio) is an American regional sports network that is owned by Fox Cable Networks, a unit of the Fox Entertainment Group division of 21st Century Fox, and operates as an affiliate of Fox Sports Networks. The channel, which is a sister network to Fox Sports Ohio, broadcasts statewide coverage of professional, collegiate and high school sports events throughout northern Ohio, including the Cleveland area.

SportsTime Ohio is available on Time Warner Cable and a number of other cable providers in Northeast Ohio and other portions of state. It is also is also available nationwide on satellite via DirecTV, as well as outside of Ohio on AT&T U-verse.

History

SportsTime Ohio was launched on March 12, 2006; it was founded by the family of Cleveland Indians owner Larry Dolan, becoming the second regional sports network in the Cleveland area, after Fox Sports Ohio (which launched in February 1989 as SportsChannel Ohio). SportsTime Ohio assumed the regional cable television rights to Major League Baseball games involving the Indians from Fox Sports Ohio, which had served as the exclusive local broadcaster of the Indians from 2002 to 2005, when it was majority-owned by Cablevision Systems Corporation (a New York-based company owned by Dolan's brother, Charles) until an asset trade with then-Fox Sports Net parent News Corporation.

Starting off as rivals, the two networks would soon become corporate sisters, when on December 3, 2012, the Indians announced that it would sell SportsTime Ohio to Fox Sports Ohio parent Fox Entertainment Group. The deal was finalized four weeks later on December 28.[1] Fox retained SportsTime Ohio's existing staff despite coming under common ownership with Fox Sports Ohio, with Katie Witham becoming a traveling reporter with the team.

In April 2013, at the beginning of the 2013 Major League Baseball season, SportsTime Ohio began incorporating the Fox Sports branding, imagery and programming used on the other Fox Sports regional networks.[2] In January 2014, Dish Network dropped SportsTime Ohio from its channel lineup in a carriage dispute after the satellite provider and 21st Century Fox (a company created through the spin-off of News Corporation's U.S. entertainment properties in July 2013) could not reach terms on a new carriage agreement due to disagreements over a hike in retransmission consent payments for the channel proposed by Fox.

Programming

Professional sports

Bruce Drennan hosting his daily talk show at Progressive Field.

SportsTime Ohio holds the exclusive regional cable television rights to the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball and the Ohio Machine of Major League Lacrosse. The channel produces Indians Live, a pre-game and post-game show bookending the channel's Indians telecasts. Since its founding in 2006, SportsTime Ohio has also served as the local cable broadcaster of the NFL's Cleveland Browns, carrying rebroadcasts of all preseason games shown on NBC affiliate WKYC (channel 3), as well as Browns team magazine and coaches shows during the season.

College sports

STO also airs college football, basketball, baseball and other sanctioned events from the Mid-American Conference; as well as Notre Dame football and basketball, University of Akron football and Cleveland State basketball games.[3] Additionally, STO airs the Horizon League basketball Game of the Week (including games featuring the Cleveland State Vikings) each Saturday during the season.

High school sports

Since its launch, SportsTime Ohio has broadcast high school football and basketball games. In 2007, STO announced it had acquired the television rights to some Ohio High School Athletic Association championship events, including football playoff games, all seven division football championship games, boys and girls playoff basketball, and volleyball, soccer, hockey, and baseball championships. Time Warner Cable provides coverage of the OHSAA championships on its systems in the Dayton and Cincinnati markets, as SportsTime Ohio is not carried on those systems.[4]

Original programming

Current[5]

On-air staff

Current on-air staff

Cleveland Indians telecasts

High school football

References

  1. "Fox Sports Buys SportsTime Ohio". Broadcasting & Cable. NewBay Media. December 28, 2012. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
  2. Joel Hammond (March 16, 2013). "On new SportsTime Ohio, a lot stays the same". TribeVibe. Retrieved March 16, 2013.
  3. "SportsTime Ohio". SportsTime Ohio.
  4. "SportsTime Ohio signs a one-year deal with OHSAA". WKYC (Gannett Company).
  5. "STO schedule". Fox Sports Ohio.
  6. "SportsTime Ohio Rebrands All Bets Are Off as Drennan Live". Fox Sports Ohio. September 4, 2014.

External links