People forget that the first-ever conference network came from the Mountain West in form of the now defunct The Mtn., and not the highly successful Big Ten Network.
There were a lot of reasons that network failed and part of it was market size and distribution for the Mountain West Network, and yes there were some issues with announcers and camera work. Overall, it helped pave the way for conference networks and also league-wide networks we enjoy today.
These conference and league networks provided an extra avenue for revenue and now they are at that point again.