SportsChannel Cincinnati was an American

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 ...

owned by the Rainbow Media division of

Cablevision Cablevision Systems Corporation was an American cable television company with systems serving areas surrounding New York City. It was the fifth-largest cable provider and ninth-largest television provider in the United States. Throughout its e ...

, and operated as an affiliate of

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, ...

. Headquartered in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

, the channel used to broadcast regional coverage of sports events throughout the

Miami Valley The Miami Valley is the land area surrounding the Great Miami River in southwest Ohio, USA, and includes the Little Miami, Mad, and Stillwater rivers as well. Geographically, it includes Dayton, Springfield, Middletown, Hamilton, and other ...

, focusing mainly on professional sports teams based in the Cincinnati area.

History

The network launched on April 1, 1990, with coverage of

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 (A ...

games involving the

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division and were a charter member of ...

as its flagship programming. The initial contract with the Reds gave SportsChannel 30 games in 1990, increasing to 35 and then 40 games in 1991 and 1992 respectively. Other programming was provided from SportsChannel Ohio including basketball games from the

Midwestern Collegiate Conference The Horizon League is an 11-school collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, whose members are located in and near the Great Lakes region. The Horizon League founded in 1979 as the Mid ...

and

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the t ...

. The network also featured SportsChannel's NHL package and

Notre Dame football The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team is the intercollegiate College football, football team representing the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana (CDP), Notre Dame, Indiana, north of the city of South Bend, Indiana. The team pla ...

. At launch, SportsChannel Cincinnati broadcast nightly from 5 PM to Midnight on weekdays and from 9 AM to Midnight on weekends. This was expanded to a 24-hour schedule beginning on January 1, 1994. On June 30, 1997, Fox/Liberty Networks (owned as 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 risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

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 Liberty Media Corporation (commonly referred to as Liberty Media or just Liberty) is an American mass media company controlled by chairman John C. Malone. The company has three divisions, reflecting the company's ownership stakes in Formula On ...

) purchased a 40% interest in Cablevision's sports properties (including the SportsChannel networks,

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylv ...

, and the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...

and

New York Rangers The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its ho ...

) for $850 million. In November 1997, SportsChannel was integrated into

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 ...

, a group of regional sports networks created by Fox/Liberty in November 1996. On January 28, 1998, after legal delays, SportsChannel Cincinnati was folded into

Fox Sports Ohio Bally Sports Ohio is an American regional sports network owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group and is operated as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of sports events in the state of Ohio, with a focus on profess ...

(the former SportsChannel Ohio), serving as a regional subfeed of that network. (Date was incorrect)

References

Defunct local cable stations in the United States Sports in Cincinnati Television channels and stations established in 1990 1990 establishments in Ohio Television channels and stations disestablished in 1998 1998 disestablishments in Ohio Television stations in Cincinnati Defunct mass media in Ohio {{Cincinnati-sport-stub