Big Ten Network

The Big Ten Network (BTN) is an American regional sports network that is owned as a joint venture between the Big Ten Conference (which owns 49% of the network) and the Fox Entertainment Group subsidiary of 21st Century Fox (which owns a controlling 51% interest), and is operated by Fox Sports. It is the first internationally distributed network dedicated to covering a single collegiate athletic conference. Dedicated to sports and other programming from the Big Ten, the network's lineup includes telecasts of Big Ten events, archived events involving schools in the conference, studio shows, coach's shows, documentaries and other programming related to the conference.

The network reaches approximately 90 million households nationwide, and is available up to an estimated 100 million pay television households in the United States and Canada. It is headquartered in the former Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalog House building at 600 West Chicago Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.

The network has agreements with more than 300 providers. It is carried nationally on DirecTV, Dish Network and AT&T U-verse; and regionally on nearly every cable system in the Big Ten's 14-state footprint, including AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, Insight Communications, Mediacom Communications, Time Warner Cable, Cable One, Cablevision and several others. In Canada, it is available on Shaw Direct, Shaw Cable, Rogers Cable, Cogeco Cable and EastLink. The network is available on cable in 19 of the 20 largest U.S. media markets.

Big Ten Conference

The Big Ten Conference (B1G), formerly Western Conference and Big Nine Conference, is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference competes in the NCAA Division I; its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I, the highest level of NCAA competition in that sport. The conference includes the flagship public university in each of 11 states stretching from New Jersey to Nebraska, as well as two additional public land grant schools and a private university.

The Big Ten Conference established itself almost 120 years ago as the premiere collective of academic institutions in the country when, in 1895, Purdue University president James H. Smart and representatives from the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, and University of Wisconsin gathered at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago to set policies aimed at regulating intercollegiate athletics. In 1905, the conference was officially incorporated as the "Intercollegiate Conference Athletic Association". The conference uses the "B1G" character combination in its branding, noting that it "allows fans to see 'BIG' and '10' in a single word."

Big Ten (disambiguation)

Big Ten may refer to:

Major film studio

A major film studio is a production and distribution company that releases a substantial number of films annually and consistently commands a significant share of box office revenue in a given market. In the North American, Western, and global markets, the major film studios, often simply known as the majors, are commonly regarded as the six diversified media conglomerates whose various film production and distribution subsidiaries collectively command approximately 80 to 85 percent of U.S. and Canadian box office revenue. The term may also be applied more specifically to the primary motion picture business subsidiary of each respective conglomerate.

The "Big Six" majors, whose operations are based in or around the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood, are all centered in film studios active during Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s. In three cases—20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Paramount—the studios were one of the "Big Five" majors during that era as well. In two cases—Columbia and Universal—the studios were also considered majors, but in the next tier down, part of the "Little Three". In the sixth case, Walt Disney Studios was an independent production company during the Golden Age; it was an important Hollywood entity, but not a major. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists, and RKO were majors.

Network Ten

Network Ten (commonly known as Channel Ten or simply Ten, stylised as TEN), is an Australian commercial broadcasting network owned by Ten Network Holdings, and is headquartered in Pyrmont, New South Wales. It is the third Australian free-to-air television network to make its debut after Nine Network in 1956 and Seven Network in 1956. It first aired on August 1, 1964 in Melbourne. Network Ten is the fourth of all the five national free-to-air networks in Australia, after the ABC. Its owned-and-operated stations can be found in the capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country. The channel's name became a backronym for "The Entertainment Network" during the early-1990s.

History

Origins

From the introduction of TV in 1956 until 1965 there were only two commercial television networks in Australia, the National Television Network (now the Nine Network) and the Australian Television Network (now the Seven Network), as well as the public Australian Broadcasting Corporation (then Commission). In the early 1960s, the federal government began canvassing the idea of licensing a third commercial television station in each capital city. This decision was seen by some as a way for the government to defuse growing public dissatisfaction with the dominance of imported overseas programming and the paucity of local content. The first of these "third" licences was granted to United Telecasters Sydney was granted on 4 April 1963.