MWC TV picture muddled further by CSTV changes

CSTV, the company the Mountain West Conference tied its television future to in 2004, has ceased to exist as anything approaching an independent entity. CBS, which bought the company in November 2005, has announced that it "will integrate the combined businesses" of CSTV "into the operations of CBS Sports."

That is, in all likelihood, a good thing for CSTV. Whether it's a good thing for the MWC remains to be seen.

And the man who founded and ran CSTV — the man at the head of the company when it signed the Mountain West Conference to a long-term contract — will soon be out of the picture. Brian Bedol, who founded CSTV and continued to run it as an independent division within CBS, will aid in the transition but then will become a "senior adviser" to CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves.

(I know Les Moonves. I've interviewed him dozens of times. I have close friends who have worked for him. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who's going to spend a lot of time listening to a "senior adviser.")

With Bedol out of the picture, CSTV will be overseen by CBS News and Sports president Sean McManus. Tony Petitti, executive vice president and executive producer of CBS Sports, will oversee the day-to-day operations.

It's too early to say exactly what this will mean to viewers, but insiders expect CSTV to follow the same path as ESPN — to focus more on the big college conferences and less on the small ones.

In the short term, that will be more obvious when it comes to college basketball. Not only does CBS have the rights to the NCAA men's basketball tournament, but the network has agreements with the Big East, Southeastern, Big Ten, Pac-10, ACC and Big 12 conferences to carry some regular season games.

In football, CBS has the broadcast-TV rights to SEC games.

CSTV is currently available in only 20-something million homes, but CBS will make a big push to get it on additional cable systems. As distribution grows, the network may go after the football and basketball rights for BCS conferences.

Again, good for CSTV, but what about the Mountain West Conference? That doesn't look so good.