Charter Communications is informing customers that it will cease to carry The Sportsman Channel, the hunting and fishing network owned by Stan Kroenke’s Outdoor Sportsman Group, on Oct. 30.
Charter’s action was first reported by TV Answerman.
Charter declined to comment.
Sportsman Channel spokesman Thomas Caraccioli confirmed via an email message that the channel had been dropped by Charter. The other Outdoor Sportsman Group channels were not affected.
“We were looking for wider distribution and we couldn’t come to terms,” he said in the e-mail message, noting that Charter represented less than 5% of the network's overall carriage.
The Sportsman Channel airs hunting, fishing and outdoor lifestyle shows like Davidson’s Gallery of Guns,MeatEater, Rival Wild, and Sheep Shape. It became part of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment in 2014 after the billionaire sports mogul (he owns the Los Angeles Rams, the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche, to name a few) purchased its parent InterMedia Outdoor Holdings, combining it with his Outdoor Channel and World Fishing Network. Outdoor Sportsman Group was formed about a year later.
Kroenke, who also owns British Premier League soccer power Arsenal, has come under fire in the U.K. for launching the My Outdoor TV channel in that country, which some critics have said features trophy hunting of endangered animals.
