DirecTV CEO Carey Promises 70 HD Channels By End of Third Quarter
Top Satellite Provider Will Expand to 100 HD Networks by End of 2007
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 8/9/2007 9:22:00 AM
DirecTV plans to have more than 70 HD channels when it launches its expanded HDTV package the end of the third quarter, and to have 100 HD services by the end of the year, officials said Thursday.
DirecTV CEO Chase Carey offered the HDTV update during the satellite provider’s second-quarter conference call. DirecTV, now with 16.3-million subscribers, has deals for 90 HDTV networks at this juncture, and is working on more. But not all of those services will have launched by the time the satellite company jump starts its HDTV platform, according to Carey.
“It looks like we have 20 or 30 channels that are going to need a couple of months to get an HD feed online, which is why we’ll grow from 70 to over 100 in those few months” Carey said.
As a result, DirecTV will roll out its expanded HDTV offering with 70 HD channels and add to that, getting to 100 by the end of the year, Carey said.
“More is more…I think there’s a magic to having a unique volume,” he said. “I think there is a critical mass that is important.”
The HDTV expansion won’t increase DirecTV programming costs, since the satellite provider is negotiating HDTV rights when it does its traditional analog deals, according to Carey.
Carey, who has agreed to a new three-year employment contract that will keep him at DirecTV until the end of 2010, added that he believed that DirecTV’s aggressive ad campaign relating to HDTV been successful.
“To some degree, I think it’s best testament would be, you look at our competitors have spent an awful lot of energy in the past three or four months trying to refute or muddy the waters about the advantages we’re going to have,” Carey said.
Two of DirecTV’s commercials prompted a false-advertising lawsuit by Time Warner Cable. DirecTV and Time Warner announced Thursday that that had settled that litigation.
A recent satellite launch will permit DirecTV, which is awaiting Liberty Media’s purchase of News Corp.’s stake in it, to increase its HD capacity to 100 channels, with a second satellite later this year or early next year bringing that capacity to 150 HD national channels.
Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., issued a report on DirecTV Thursday.
“We continue to believe that DTV will have to accelerate its spending even faster than it already has if it is going to deliver on its promise to be the ‘best’ in HDTV,” he wrote. “We estimate that as of 2Q07, DirecTV's HDTV penetration was just 14%, compared to 32% at Comcast (as a percentage of digital subscribers).”
DirecTV will also be debuting its video on-demand offering, using a broadband and hard-drive connection, this fall, Carey pointed out.
“It’s a wide range of selection,” he said.
When asked if DirecTV is looking for ways to team up with rival satellite provider EchoStar Communications, Carey said over the years there have been such talks back and forth.
“We have talked about some areas like ad sales,” he said.
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worst pieces of hardware we have ever seen. Especially the HD DVR.
We had to buy one from Circuit City for $399.00 online because the
model we needed wasn't being offered from the DirecTV website,
although I think it is now. The reason? The older model needs a land
line phone to be activated. We no longer have a land line phone (we
use an internet phone service). Maybe they now carry this model but
that really isn't the biggest issue we have. The newest model has
terrible issues with voice and picture sync. We paid a lot of money for
our HD TV so we know it isn't the TV. We originally had the HD DVR
connected to a cheaper HD TV and thought it was because of the
speed of the TV processor. They have not expessed any desire to
provide an upgraded model. When they removed the competition, they
removed the quality. We are seriously thinking about changing to Dish
because of this.
