DirecTV HD News Sends Nets Scurrying
By Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 1/9/2007 6:16:00 PM
DirecTV’s announcement Monday that it plans to carry 100 national HD services this year made extra work for some network publicists because several HD networks on the list don’t exist and hadn’t even been announced as planned.
The direct-broadcast satellite carrier said it had “signed agreements, or agreements in principle,” with more than 70 networks, including HD versions of NBC Universal’s Sci Fi Channel and USA Network; Fox Cable Networks’ FX, Speed Channel and National Geographic Channel; and Turner Broadcasting System outlets Cartoon Network, CNN and TBS.
The release came out Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
NBC U -- which distributes a conglomerate service called Universal HD showing programming from its owned networks -- would only say that it’s still evaluating a suite of HD channels, releasing no specific names or timetable. USA and Sci Fi, though, are logical members of an NBC U HD suite.
CNN Worldwide president Jim Walton said during a Television Critics Association presentation in Pasadena, Calif., Tuesday that an HD version of CNN will launch in September. And Turner said later that Cartoon and TBS HD versions will also launch in September.
And HD TNT is already distributed by DirecTV, EchoStar Communications’ Dish Network, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications.
Fox’s regional sports networks and NGC -- which Fox co-owns and distributes -- have HD versions in the market. But there are no HD versions of FX or Speed and no plans for launches have been announced.
Fox, through a spokesman, said Tuesday, “Speed and FX now have ensured national distribution for their native HD production, meaning we can ramp up aggressively on either side.” And the NGC HD launch on DirecTV will push that service above 50 million homes, as the channel is already carried on Dish and has a recent agreement with Comcast.
DirecTV, with two new satellites launched, plans a “breakout year for HD,” saying that it will have 100 HD national services, more than three times as many as any cable company or satellite distributor currently has.
Most of the new launches will take place during the third quarter, DirecTV added.
