DirecTV Plans to Get Portable
-- Multichannel News, 1/5/2006 12:03:00 AM
A portable-media-player service called “DirecTV 2Go” and a new original half-hour music program are on DirecTV Inc.’s list of new products and services to show off at the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The direct-broadcast satellite provider will also demonstrate a new HD digital-video recorder; discuss plans for a video-game “tournament” that it will produce featuring in-game camera angles; and show off new LCD TV screens with integrated DirecTV receivers (although when those sets might be sold to the public is “still being determined”).
News Corp.-controlled DirecTV emphasized “an entirely new wave of programming” on its 15 million-subscriber platform in a press release previewing what it will show off at CES.
CEO Chase Carey -- whose company has scheduled a press conference for Thursday at the show -- was also quoted in the release as saying that DirecTV was continuing to “innovate, delivering new and expanded services that will provide the best television-viewing experience when, where and how our customers want it."
The DirecTV 2Go service -- to be launched this year -- would transfer programming content from the “DirecTV Plus DVR” to portable media players that will use specific audio and video formats and display content in a separate menu area with a DirecTV- branded user interface.
Rival satellite-TV player EchoStar Communications Corp.’s Dish Network already has a portable product in the market, called “PocketDish.”
DirecTV said the “cornerstone” of its original-programming moves is CD USA, starting Jan. 21, a weekly half-hour show of live music performances in standard-definition and HD and other features, such as interviews, related to the topic.Other programming enhancements on tap, for launch at unspecified times in 2006:
• The “Massive Gaming League,” a video-game tournament covered as a sporting event, “complete with producer, director and technical crew [and with] stories of the competitors told via interviews and features, complemented with coverage of their exploits in actual competition”;• A new “mix channel” that lets customers with interactive-enabled receivers watch “March Madness” college-basketball fare on up to six live channels on one screen; and
• A three-hour block of programming aimed at helping singles meet other singles. This last feature will be called “Direct Date.”
