Charlotte Bobcat’s Worst Idea So Far (C-SET) Is Dead
Charlotte Biz Journal reports the demise of C-SET. Good riddance. I was pissed about C-SET from the beginning but apparently being handed an NBA team doesn’t require you to have the sense to avoid something as stupid as C-SET (aka “the corner of the dial where we’re going to hide our your Bobcats”). According to the BizJournal article, Charlotte’s TV market is around 1,000,000 homes (that’s 1 million for those of you too lazy to count commas). The BizJournal says that TW Cable only services 390,000 of those homes. With numbers like that, I would immediately call this a bad idea but it was worse than that… they made C-SET a digital subscriber feature. The BizJournal says that only 40% of TW’s subscribers have digital cable but they didn’t bother doing the math to get to the bottom line:
C-SET, the television home of a rookie-year NBA franchise, was put on the air in a manner that would not be seen by over 84% of the Charlotte TV market.
A first year team that snubs 84% of their hometown from day one? At least Shinn had the sense to get in good with the people before trying to screw us. If Bob’s people don’t save their franchise from this sort of behavior FAST (as in “before the Arena is finished this fall and people realize we have a NBA team again”), Charlotte may set a new record for NBA franchise turnovers. I’m sure Jordan still wants to be here and I have a feeling the Hornets will be looking for a new home as soon as New Orleans realizes that there were very good reasons for Shinn leaving Charlotte.