LAS VEGAS – Changes are in store for the way millions of sports fans watch their favorite teams on television – and some companies with Colorado ties are helping to instigate them.
Here in Las Vegas at the cable industry’s annual trade show, the buzz is about two digital-era TV technologies that will influence the way sports show up on television. One is high-definition TV, which is emerging as a big battleground between the cable industry and a satellite TV sector that has a big presence in Colorado. The other is video-on-demand, which is starting to make an impact on the world of televised sports.
At its quarterly conference call with investment analysts May 8, Colorado-based Liberty Media Corp. made it clear that high-def supremacy is a big goal the company hopes to achieve when it takes control over satellite broadcaster DirecTV later this year. Liberty chairman John Malone said DirecTV’s plan to shower its customers with hundreds of HDTV channels is designed to set DirecTV apart from cable industry rivals that Liberty thinks will struggle to catch up. Some combination of high-definition channels with newfangled digital video recorders that let customers record and playback favorite shows represents “the sweet spot of what the public is particularly interested in right now,” Malone said.
Read the full story at.
