Gospel Music Channel Inks DirecTV Pact
24-Hour Christian-Music Network Adds 16.8M Homes
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/26/2008 3:15:00 PM
Gospel Music Channel will now be coming from the heavens.
The 24-hour Christian-music network struck its first satellite carriage deal, with DirecTV. Starting March 19, Gospel will be on channel 338. The deal will put the channel in front of almost 40 million homes with the addition of DirecTV's 16.8 million.
The channel added 28 million subscribers in the past 12 months, primarily through this latest deal and one in which it took over most of the carriage deals (about 10 million subscribers) from Black Family Channel when that service went online-only last May.
Gospel Channel now has carriage deals with all of the cable majors except Cablevision Systems, a channel spokesman said.
