PRISM (Philadelphia Regional In-home Sports and Movies) was an American regional premium

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

channel in the

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

metropolitan area. Launched in September 1976, PRISM was primarily distributed through area

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

systems, although it was also available through a scrambled over-the-air signal on WWSG-TV (channel 57, now

WPSG WPSG (channel 57) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS owned-and-operated station KYW-TV (channel 3). Both stations share stu ...

) from 1983 to 1985. The channel's programming consisted primarily of theatrically released motion pictures, although it was better known for its telecasts of sporting events, particularly those featuring Philadelphia's

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

and NBA sports franchises. Due to broadcasting restrictions imposed by the three major sports leagues, as a cable channel, the network limited its distribution to within of Philadelphia proper (covering an area extending from west of

Harrisburg Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in Pe ...

to as far north as

Scranton Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming V ...

History

Launch and early years

PRISM launched at 5:30 p.m.

Eastern Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small por ...

on September 1, 1976; it debuted with a message by announcer Hugh Gannon: "Good evening, everyone. PRISM, the pay-television network, is on the air." Following this was the first movie to be broadcast on PRISM, the 1975 film ''

The Wind and the Lion ''The Wind and the Lion'' is a 1975 American epic adventure film written and directed by John Milius and starring Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith, and John Huston. Made in Panavision and Metrocolor and produced by Herb Jaffe and Phil ...

''. Ten days later on September 10, the channel aired its first sports telecast: a Major League Baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs. At its launch, PRISM only had six subscribers, all located in

Upper Darby, Pennsylvania Upper Darby Township, often shortened to Upper Darby, is a home rule township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The township borders Philadelphia, the nation's sixth most populous city as of 2020 with 1.6 million residents. As of the 2020 ce ...

. The network was founded by Edward M. Snider, the owner of the

Philadelphia Flyers The Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia. The Flyers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games in Well ...

NHL team and

Spectacor Comcast Spectacor is a Philadelphia-based American sports and entertainment company. It owns the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League, the Maine Mariners of the ECHL, the Philadelphia Wings of the National Lacrosse League, the Phil ...

, co-owner of PRISM as well as the owner of the Flyers and The Spectrum;

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

initially held a 50% ownership interest in the channel. PRISM's administrative offices were located on City Avenue in the Philadelphia suburb of

Bala Cynwyd Bala Cynwyd ( ) is a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania. It is located on the Philadelphia Main Line in Southeastern Pennsylvania, bordering the western edge of Philadelphia at U.S. Route 1 (City Avenue). It was originally two separ ...

, while its studios, production and master control facilities were all situated at the event level of The Spectrum at Broad Street and Pattison Avenue in

South Philadelphia South Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south and the Schuylkill River to the west.Philadelphia 76ers and Philadelphia Phillies to allow the channel to televise their home games, after the two teams expressed concern that broadcasting games would hurt attendance; the teams' concerns subsided when they discovered PRISM broadcasts had no effect on the number of spectators who attended their respective games at The Spectrum and

Veterans Stadium Veterans Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, at the northeast corner of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. The seating capacities were 65,358 for foo ...

and helped them earn additional revenue from carrying the home game telecasts. What differentiated PRISM from other subscription television services – some of which included ONTV, SelecTV and

Z Channel The Z Channel was one of the first pay television stations in the United States best known for its devotion to the art of cinema due to the eclectic choice of films"Film-News and Notes." ''Daily News of Los Angeles'' October 3, 1986 by the prog ...

, and to some extent, national services such as HBO and Showtime – was that it broadcast exclusive and extensive sports coverage, which included Flyers, Phillies and 76ers games,

Big 5 Big Five may refer to: Animals * the Big Five, large African wild animals said to be most difficult to hunt: lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and Cape buffalo * Big Five animals of the Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India: Indian rhinocero ...

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

and live boxing and live

World Wrestling Federation World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and var ...

events held at The Spectrum (the venue itself lending to the channel's tongue-in-cheek naming as viewing a "

prism Prism usually refers to: * Prism (optics), a transparent optical component with flat surfaces that refract light * Prism (geometry), a kind of polyhedron Prism may also refer to: Science and mathematics * Prism (geology), a type of sedimentary ...

" allowed one to see " the spectrum"). Its sports coverage extended to sports-based original programming, such as ''Broad & Pattison'' (named after the South Philadelphia intersection where the Spectrum complex was located), ''The Great Sports Debate'' and the monthly sports anthology series ''Sports Scrapbook'' (the latter of which debuted on April 2, 1981 and was hosted by the channel's

sports director The title of sports director can refer to the director of a live sports broadcast. It can also refer to an individual at a television or radio station who is in charge of the sports department. Director {{Job-stub ...

Jim Barniak, once a sports writer for the '' Philadelphia Bulletin'', who served as a play-by-play announcer for PRISM's 76ers and Phillies game telecasts from 1979 until his death from a

gastrointestinal hemorrhage Gastrointestinal bleeding (GI bleed), also called gastrointestinal hemorrhage (GIB), is all forms of bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract, from the mouth to the rectum. When there is significant blood loss over a short time, symptoms may includ ...

at age 50 in December 1991. 76ers telecasts on PRISM during the run of the channel featured several professional basketball coaches as analysts including Chuck Daly,

Gene Shue Eugene William Shue (December 18, 1931 – April 3, 2022) was an American professional basketball player and coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Shue was one of the top guards of the early days of the NBA and an influential figure ...

Hubie Brown Hubert Jude Brown (born September 25, 1933) is an American retired basketball coach and player and a current television analyst. Brown is a two-time NBA Coach of the Year, the honors being separated by 26 years. Brown was inducted into the Naism ...

Matt Guokas Matthew George Guokas Jr. (; born February 25, 1944) is an American former professional basketball player and coach. His father, Matt Sr. and uncle, Al, have also played in the NBA. Guokas and his father, Matt Sr., were the first father-son ...

and Jack Ramsay. PRISM also broadcast a selection of other programs outside of sports, the most prominent being theatrical feature film releases from

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

and 20th Century Fox, along with specialized programs such as the music series ''Live At Rafters'' (which debuted in October 1993, and was recorded at the Rafters nightclub at West Chester) and the children's program block "PRISM Kids". The network acted as a loss leader in its early years of existence, consistently losing money throughout its first five years in operation, before finally turning its first profits in 1981. On November 6, 1981, Spectacor launched PRISM New England (now

NBC Sports Boston NBC Sports Boston is an American regional sports network owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, and operates as an affiliate of NBC Sports Regional Networks. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of professional sports events thr ...

), a

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

-based cable channel which maintained a similar programming format as PRISM, and carried games from the

Hartford Whalers The Hartford Whalers were a professional ice hockey team based for most of its existence in Hartford, Connecticut. The club played in the World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1972 until 1979, and in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1979 to ...

, Boston Celtics,

Boston Breakers The Boston Breakers were an American professional soccer club based in the Boston neighborhood of Allston. The team competed in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). They replaced the original Breakers, who competed in the defunct Women's ...

and various

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

college sports teams. In 1982, Snider bought out Fox's 50% stake in PRISM and PRISM New England.

Rainbow Media ownership

In 1983, PRISM and PRISM New England were sold to a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and economic risk, risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four rea ...

between Rainbow Media (now

AMC Networks AMC Networks Inc. is an American entertainment company headquartered in 11 Penn Plaza, New York. AMC Networks owns and operates the eponymous cable channel and its siblings, IFC, We TV, and Sundance TV; the art house movie theater IFC Cen ...

) and

The Washington Post Company Graham Holdings Company (formerly The Washington Post Company) is a diversified American conglomerate holding company. Headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, and incorporated in Delaware, it was formerly the owner of ''The Washington Post ...

; whereas the flagship Philadelphia service retained the PRISM name and format, the Rainbow-Post consortium opted instead to revamp PRISM New England into an all-sports service as SportsChannel New England, an affiliate of the Rainbow-owned

regional sports network In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...

SportsChannel SportsChannel is the collective name for a former group of regional sports networks in the United States that was owned by Cablevision, which from 1988 until the group's demise, operated it as a joint venture with NBC. Operating from March 1, ...

. That year, PRISM began to be transmitted over-the-air on WWSG-TV (channel 57; now CW owned-and-operated station

); the station scrambled its signal during hours when it transmitted the network's programming, requiring the use of decoding equipment in order to view PRISM content over WWSG. This only lasted for two years, ending when WWSG was sold to the Grant Broadcasting System in 1985 and was converted into a general entertainment independent station as WGBS-TV. Although it operated as a premium service, beginning in the mid-1980s, PRISM took on the unconventional model of operating as a part advertiser-supported/part commercial-free service. Occurring during a tough year for the

industry that saw several cable channels (such as

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

USA Network USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison ...

, Lifetime and

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather foreca ...

) endure major profit losses, PRISM incorporated commercials into its sports telecasts in 1984, a decision that network management was forced to make on the basis that it could not increase its subscription rates at that time without potentially alienating the network's subscriber base. Movie telecasts continued to be presented without any commercial interruption whatsoever, while content during breaks between films continued to consist solely of promotions for upcoming film and event broadcasts (with promos for scheduled movie telecasts being sourced from theatrical

trailers Trailer may refer to: a Transportation * Trailer (vehicle), an unpowered vehicle pulled by a powered vehicle ** Bicycle trailer, a wheeled frame for hitching to a bicycle to tow cargo or passengers ** Full-trailer ** Semi-trailer **Horse trail ...

for the corresponding film) and behind-the-scenes featurettes. In 1985,

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

– which had already owned

WCAU WCAU (channel 10) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Mount Laurel, New Jer ...

(channel 10, now an

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

owned-and-operated station) at the time – acquired a minority stake in PRISM. The network also owned shares in Rainbow’s other cable channels, Bravo (then focused on arts programming and

foreign Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United S ...

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

and arthouse films) and

American Movie Classics AMC is an American multinational basic cable television channel that is the flagship property of AMC Networks. The channel's programming primarily consists of theatrically released films, along with a limited amount of original programming. T ...

(then focusing on classic films from the 1930s through the 1970s), both of which operated as niche premium services at the time. Both CBS and The Washington Post Company sold their interests in PRISM to Rainbow Media in 1987, giving the latter company full control of the channel. By the late 1980s, the channel fully deemphasized the full "Philadelphia Regional In-Home Sports and Movies" moniker in favor of branding solely by the "PRISM" acronym. In 1989, Rainbow's parent company Cablevision announced a partnership with NBC in which the latter would acquire a 50% stake in PRISM, as part of a later aborted deal that was part of their then-joint ownership of upstart business news channel

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

(which NBC would ultimately launch on its own). PRISM was priced at $12 a month on average, 70¢ of the revenue it accrued from each subscriber of the channel was used to acquire film and sports programming rights; the rest of the revenue was divided as compensation between film distributors and local sports teams. By 1986, PRISM had about 370,000 subscribers, most of whom received the network through a cable provider (Philadelphia proper had not been fully wired for cable television service at the time). By that time, Cablevision began to sell PRISM to cable providers as part of a package with American Movie Classics. On January 1, 1990, Rainbow Media launched a companion basic cable channel to PRISM:

SportsChannel Philadelphia SportsChannel Philadelphia was an American regional sports network owned as a joint venture between Rainbow Sports, a unit of the Rainbow Media subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation, and NBC (which both owned 50%), and operated as an aff ...

, which also served as an affiliate of the company's SportsChannel network. Both channels maintained separate graphics, music packages and announcing teams until 1995, when all sports presentations on PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia adopted a uniform on-air appearance and began using the same announcers.

Later years

The original three-stripe

rainbow A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...

-colored logo that PRISM had used since its 1976 launch was retired in the Summer of 1993, in favor of a modernized logo and on-air identity as part of a rebranding effort that attempted to increase focus on the channel's programming outside of its sports coverage, particularly its feature film content (the new look utilized the

Univers Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such a ...

typeface for its entire revamped appearance, that was used for all aspects of its on-air look from the logo to the text featured in graphics shown during its sports coverage). Around this time, PRISM began offering part-time simulcasts of Rainbow's national sports news channel

NewSport NewSport was an American cable and satellite television network that was owned by Rainbow Programming Holdings, a joint venture between the Rainbow Media subsidiary of Cablevision, NBC and Liberty Media. Predating the launch of the originally sim ...

as filler between sports programming and film telecasts. Rainbow Media launched websites for all of its television channels, including PRISM, in 1996. On March 19, 1996, Comcast acquired PRISM's original (part-)owner Spectacor and a 66% interest in its primary assets – the Flyers, The Spectrum and the then-recently completed

CoreStates Center The Wells Fargo Center is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in Philadelphia. It serves as the home of the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League (NHL), the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the ...

– for $240 million and the assumption of a collective $170 million in debt; the new Comcast Spectacor (with Ed Snider appointed as its chairman) also immediately purchased a 66% interest in the 76ers. Immediately after the purchase was announced, speculation arose as to whether Comcast would let at least some of Spectacor's broadcasting contracts with Rainbow Media lapse, and create a sports network of its own to house at least some of the displaced professional franchises and college teams, thereby displacing both PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia from area systems (Comcast, however, had struck a ten-year carriage agreement with Rainbow for the networks in the fall of 1995); buy the existing networks; or strike a complex deal with Rainbow to have both networks retain the sports broadcast rights. Comcast indicated that a new sports network was the route it would take, as it approached the Phillies about entering into a broadcast deal. PRISM/SportsChannel's contractual rights to the Flyers were set to end that Fall, while the Phillies' contract ended after the 1997 season, leaving them both open to enter negotiations. On April 25, 1996, Comcast Spectacor formally announced plans to create a new all-sports network centered around the Flyers, and announced that the Phillies would also move their games to the new network upon its launch. With uncertainty looming over the future of the two networks, relations between PRISM/SportsChannel and Comcast Spectacor became somewhat strained. Negotiations to keep the Flyers television rights on the network nearly broke down, as Rainbow had offered a lower bid for the rights than what the Flyers asked for. By late September, the team announced plans to produce its home game broadcasts themselves and sell the local rights to individual cable providers should a deal not come to fruition. In September 1996, PRISM and SportsChannel lost the regional cable rights to Big 5 City Series basketball games, as there was no assurance that either network would be able to carry the full slate of games, and because of issues that arose during contract negotiations regarding whether Rainbow or the Big 5 would pay for the broadcast rights; this left the association to sell the local television contract to the City Series telecasts for the 1996–97 season (with some of the games ending up on The Comcast Network). Then on October 4, 1996, the day before its

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

home opener, the Flyers reached a one-year contract extension with PRISM and SportsChannel, which would pay $5 million for the rights to televise the hockey team's matches.

Decline

On June 30, 1997, Fox/Liberty Networks (a

between

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...

and Liberty Media) purchased a 40% interest in Cablevision's sports properties for $850 million, with the primary intent of integrating the eight SportsChannel networks into its recently created

Fox Sports Net Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

group of regional sports networks. While the creation of the new Comcast sports network seemingly effectively drove a stake through the heart of PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia, the Fox/Liberty deal with Cablevision created the possibility of PRISM and/or SportsChannel becoming affiliates of Fox Sports Net. Even though Comcast had already snagged the Phillies' television rights, Fox announced that SportsChannel and PRISM would "continue to receive a heavy slate of Phillies and Sixers games". It then announced plans for the renamed SportsChannel Philadelphia to add national programs from Fox Sports Net, while PRISM would remain a premium service focused on movies and regional sports; although, there was some speculation that Fox and Comcast would possibly partner to aggregate their respective team broadcast rights onto a single channel. On July 21, 1997, Comcast acquired the local television rights to the 76ers from PRISM and SportsChannel, opting out of its joint contract with the two networks that was set to run until the 1999–2000 season. Comcast then reached agreements with Liberty Media and Rainbow Media that resulted in a major change to Philadelphia's cable television landscape; Rainbow officially shut down PRISM and SportsChannel on October 1, 1997, but both channels were given designated successors: PRISM was replaced with the Liberty-owned premium movie channel

Starz! Starz (stylized as STARZ since 2016; pronounced "stars") is an American premium cable and satellite television network owned by Lions Gate Entertainment, and is the flagship property of parent subsidiary Starz Inc. Programming on Starz consis ...

(which at the time, was starting to expand its national pay television distribution beyond cable systems operated by then-sister company Tele-Communications, Inc.); for the final two months of its existence beginning on August 1, PRISM also carried select first-run movies sourced from Starz! to occupy airtime. Rainbow also offered selected programming from another of its cable channels, MuchMusic USA (now Fuse), as filler during PRISM's final few months of operation. The new

Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia NBC Sports Philadelphia is an American regional sports network owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by locally based cable television provider Comcast (and owns a controlling 75% interest), and the Philadelp ...

(renamed NBC Sports Philadelphia in October 2017, and which would eventually become the flagship property of its own group of

regional sports networks In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...

) also replaced SportsChannel Philadelphia on local cable systems within the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The shutdowns of PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia resulted in the layoffs of 38 full-time employees.

Legacy

PRISM's legacy is noteworthy because NBC Sports Philadelphia continues to distribute its signal to cable television providers through terrestrial infrastructure using only

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ra ...

and

fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...

relays, and is not uplinked to

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

. A controversial guideline imposed by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(known as the "terrestrial exception"), that was implemented in 1992 to encourage investments in local programming, stated that a television channel does not have to make its programming available to satellite providers if it does not use satellites for their transmission. This guideline has allowed Comcast to block

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

and Dish Network from carrying Comcast SportsNet/NBC Sports Philadelphia. This issue resulted in DirecTV filing a complaint against Comcast with the FCC on September 23, 1997, claiming that it used unfair monopolistic control to keep Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia from being made available via satellite (in contrast, DirecTV had carried SportsChannel Philadelphia prior to its shutdown). Consequently, market penetration by

direct broadcast satellite Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

providers in the Philadelphia area is much lower than in other cities within the United States. Comcast eventually began offering the sports network to

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...

's FiOS service in eastern Pennsylvania,

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

and South Jersey in December 2006. The "terrestrial exception"

loophole A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system. Originally, the word meant an arrowslit, a narrow ver ...

was closed by the FCC in a 4-1 vote on January 20, 2010; however, NBC Sports Philadelphia remains unavailable on direct broadcast satellite providers within the Philadelphia market or nationwide.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prism (Tv Channel) Television channels and stations established in 1976 1976 establishments in Pennsylvania Television channels and stations disestablished in 1997 1997 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Television stations in Philadelphia Sports television networks in the United States Defunct local cable stations in the United States American subscription television services Defunct mass media in Pennsylvania Defunct mass media in New Jersey Defunct mass media in Delaware