problems between the Reds and the city of Cincinnati meant that a planned slate of 25 contests turned into fewer than a dozen. As 1984 went on, the channel took increasing measures to boost its reach. Three months after claiming it had no interest in Florida, it debuted on some cable systems there. In October 1984, eager to increase circulation beyond its 45,000 subscribers in order to make the channel more attractive to advertisers, Sports Time allowed cable companies outside of the Cincinnati, Kansas City and St. Louis media markets the ability to place it in their basic lineups. This move drew the ire of the Reds, who believed that baseball's national television contracts precluded airing games on a regional basic cable network. The venture was losing money, and fast: Multimedia cut its third-quarter earnings forecast because of Sports Time-related losses, and Sports Time lost $2.9 million in one quarter. Closure It seemed like Sports Time might be able to survive for 1985. In February, it announced its plans to telecast 112 Cardinals and Royals contests for the 1985 baseball season—in which both teams reached the World Series—and the company was set to fill a distribution hole in St. Louis County, Missouri, when two holdout cable systems with 71,000 subscribers agreed to sign on. The network also considered shrinking its coverage footprint to Missouri and neighboring states and focusing on the Royals and Cardinals. However, on February 28, 1985, Anheuser-Busch announced that Sports Time would go dark on March 31. It had 42,000 subscribers at closure—including 15,000 in St. Louis, 9,000 in Kansas City, and 3,000 in Cincinnati—when the network had said at launch that it needed 200,000. The timing of the closure allowed the venture to avoid paying rights fees to the Cardinals and Royals for the coming baseball season. Estimates indicated that the network lost more than $1 million per month. Management with the Cardinals was caught by surprise at the news of the channel's folding. Programming Sports Time was a part-time channel, which aired in the evenings and from noon on weekends; Anheuser-Busch leased the rest of the Satcom III-R satellite transponder's air time to the Financial News Network. FNN aired during the business day. When Sports Time went under, A-B partnered with FNN to create SCORE. While SCORE was a national service, A-B contributed sets used on Sports Time programming and four on-air personalities that hosted