HTN Communications, better known as Hughes Television Network (HTN) and formerly Sports Network, was an American television network created by Richard Eugene Bailey. The company is now in the business of providing video and audio services to sports networks. It never lived up to its dream of being the nation's

fourth television network The early history of television in the United States, particularly between 1956 and 1986, was dominated by the Big Three television networks: the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the Columbia Broadcasting System ( CBS), and the American Broa ...

, following the demise of the

DuMont Television Network The DuMont Television Network (also the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being first overall in ...

. HTN limited itself to broadcasting sports events, including the

Stanley Cup Finals The Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey (also known as the Stanley Cup Final among various media, ) is the annual championship series of the National Hockey League (NHL). The winner is awarded the Stanley Cup, North America's oldest professional spo ...

PBA Bowling ''PBA Bowling'' is a 1995 bowling sports-based video game from Bethesda Softworks. It is the official bowling game of the Professional Bowlers Association. A sequel, '' PBA Tour Bowling 2'', was released in 2000. Gameplay ''PBA Bowling'' has ava ...

and special programming, including the Muppets special ''

The Frog Prince "The Frog Prince; or, Iron Henry" (, literally "The Frog King or the Iron Henry") is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in Grimms' Fairy Tales, ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' (KHM 1). Traditionally, it is the fir ...

'', and provided facilities links to a loose network of stations, who were usually

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

s or affiliates of

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

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

, or

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

. In 2013, HTN Communications merged with The Switch.

History

Sports Network Incorporated

Originally working as chief network coordinator at

in 1954, Richard Eugene Bailey conceived of a cost-effective means of broadcasting away

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

games to their home cities. The idea came from the

BBDO BBDO is a worldwide advertising agency network, with its headquarters in New York City. The agency originated in 1891 with the George Batten Company, and in 1928, through a merger with Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BDO), the agency became Batten, B ...

advertising agency, who appealed to Bailey on behalf of advertisers,

Schaefer Beer Schaefer Beer is a brand of American beer first produced in New York City during 1842 by the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company.The Schaefer Beer Stor The company relocated to Brooklyn in the early 20th century. It went public in 1968 with a $1 ...

and

Lucky Strike Lucky Strike is an American brand of cigarettes owned by the British American Tobacco group. Individual cigarettes of the brand are often referred to colloquially as "Luckies." Name Lucky Strike was introduced as a brand of plug tobacco (chew ...

cigarettes, to save money on their broadcast of

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays. In 1884, it became a member of the American Association as the Brooklyn Atlantics before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brook ...

games; Bailey came up with the concept of "streamlining transmission operations." This innovation for covering away games became the basis for the Sports Network. Bailey capitalized his company with $1,000. In December 1956, Bailey met with sponsors, ad agencies and the baseball teams' representatives at

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

's Hotel Knickerbocker to get SNI off the ground. In 1956, the first operational year, the network had 300 television and 1,200 radio broadcasts of major league baseball games. In the fall 1956, SNI started showing

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. The Browns compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team is named after ...

football games. In later years, they acquired rights to

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives in 1 ...

and

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athlet ...

basketball. SNI's coverage of the 1963 NCAA final, where

Loyola University Chicago Loyola University Chicago (Loyola or LUC) is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1870 by the Society of Jesus, Loyola is one of the largest Catholic Church, ...

upset the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati, informally Cincy) is a public university, public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1819 and had an enrollment of over 53,000 students in 2024, making it the ...

, was a ratings smash, with a larger audience than

' hit westerns ''

Have Gun – Will Travel ''Have Gun – Will Travel'' is an American Westerns on television, Western television series that was produced and originally broadcast by CBS on both television and radio from 1957 through 1963. The television version of the series starring Ri ...

'' and ''

Gunsmoke ''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centered on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central charact ...

''. By the early sixties, the Browns (still on SNI) were the only NFL team not signed to a major TV network. At the insistence of new commissioner

Pete Rozelle Alvin Ray "Pete" Rozelle (; March 1, 1926 – December 6, 1996) was an American professional football executive. Rozelle served as the commissioner of the National Football League (NFL) for nearly thirty years, from January 1960 until his retire ...

, the Browns dropped SNI when the entire league signed a collective television contract with CBS in

1962 The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War. Events January * January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...

Hughes Television Network

After

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American Aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was The World's Billionaires, one of the richest and most influential peo ...

failed to purchase a controlling interest in

in 1968, Hughes'

Hughes Tool Company Hughes Tool Company was an American manufacturer of drill bits. Founded in 1908, it was merged into Baker Hughes Incorporated in 1987. History The company was established in December 1908 as Sharp-Hughes Tool Company when Howard R. Hughes ...

purchased the Sports Network and renamed it the Hughes Television Network, with Dick Bailey continuing as president. On a staggered schedule in May 1971, ''

'' was shown on HTN with 150 stations including

WCBS-TV WCBS-TV (channel 2), branded CBS New York, is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Riverhead, New York–lic ...

and sponsored by RJR Foods.

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

purchased the Network including its satellite time in planning for the Paramount Programming Service in 1976. After the planned network's launch was scuttled in 1978, Paramount sold HTN to

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 Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh and Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eig ...

in 1979. In 1986, Joseph M. Cohen, a Madison Square Garden executive, led an investment group in purchasing HTN from Madison Square Garden. IDB Communications purchased the company in 1989. In March, 1991, HTN purchased fiber optic transmission services from Vyvx NVN to supplement its existing satellite network. In 1995, HTN was purchased by

Globecast Globecast is a French company providing services for the radio, television and media industry. These services are feeding various television and radio platforms: direct-broadcast satellite (DBS), digital terrestrial television (DTT), cable TV, IP ...

. In 2003, Cohen acquired the Network again.

Programming

As Sports Network, the Network broadcast on a network basis sports programming in the following sports: auto racing, baseball, basketball (pro and college), bowling, boxing, dog shows, football (pro and college), frostbite sailing, golf, gymnastics, horse racing, iceboating, ice hockey,

jai alai Jai alai ( : ) is a Basque sport involving bouncing a ball off a walled-in space by accelerating it to high speeds with a hand-held wicker, commonly referred to as a ''cesta''. It is a variation of Basque pelota. The term ''jai alai'', coined by ...

, lacrosse, polo, skiing, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and wrestling. SNI pick up rights for: *

football games (1956–1962) *

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

basketball *

basketball * 1963 Bing Crosby pro-amateur golf tournament * PGA National Tour program *

1963 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament The 1963 NCAA University Division basketball tournament involved 25 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball in the United States. It began on March 9, 1963, and e ...

''Monday Night Football''

According to the book ''Monday Night Mayhem'' (Reed Business Information, 1988), the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

received a bid from HTN for broadcast rights to ''

Monday Night Football ''Monday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''MNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that air on Monday nights. It originally ran on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from 1970 NFL season, 1970 t ...

''; this, while negotiations with

were nearing a standoff. HTN was reportedly offering a significantly higher price than any other network, including ABC. Reportedly, had Hughes made the deal, about half of ABC's affiliates would have carried the HTN football games anyway, including at least one ABC owned-and-operated station. Ultimately, the league agreed that it would be in the NFL's best interests to sign with an established network, eventually striking a deal with ABC for a lower amount than Hughes was offering.

Cleveland Browns broadcasters

* 1956 Browns –

Ken Coleman Kenneth Robert Coleman (April 22, 1925 – August 21, 2003) was an American radio and television sportscaster for more than four decades (1947–1989). Early life Coleman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1925, the son of William (a sale ...

Otto Graham Otto Everett Graham Jr. (December 6, 1921 – December 17, 2003) was an American professional American football, football quarterback who played for the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League ...

* 1957 Browns –

Jimmy Dudley James Randolph Dudley (September 27, 1909 – February 12, 1999) was an American sportscaster, best known as the radio play-by-play voice of Major League Baseball's Cleveland Indians for nearly two decades. Biography A native of Alexandria, V ...

* 1958 Browns –

* 1959 Browns –

* 1960 Browns –

* 1961 Browns –

/ Cliff Lewis

References

External links

HTN Communications
– official site
Satellite Channel Chart - textfiles.com
{{Navboxes, list1= {{s-start {{succession box, before= NHL Network, title=NHL network broadcast partner in the United States (with

) , years=

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union, grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning Sys ...

, after=None {{succession box, before=

, title=

NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as March Madness, or The Big Dance, is a single-elimination tournament played in the United States to determine the men's college basketball national champion of the Division I level ...

television broadcaster, years=

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove ...

–

1968 Events January–February * January 1968, January – The I'm Backing Britain, I'm Backing Britain campaign starts spontaneously. * January 5 – Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Cze ...

, after=

{{s-end {{American broadcast television (English) defunct {{The NHL Network (1975–79) {{NBA on SNI {{College basketball on television {{NFL on SNI {{UPN Defunct television networks in the United States Entertainment companies based in California Howard Hughes Television channels and stations established in 1956 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2013 Mass media companies established in 1956 Mass media companies disestablished in 2013 1956 establishments in California 2013 disestablishments in California Gulf and Western Industries Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles