DirecTV has disclosed plans to launch an iPhone app, Supercast Mobile, with a focus on NFL content. Users will be able to view any NFL Sunday Ticket game, except for those excluded by local blackout rules. Along with streaming video, the app is said to provide game highlights, scores, game stats, or player stats that can be used for fantasy football.
Fresh from a win against EchoStar, TiVo is set to tie directly into pay-per-view systems as well as Time Warner's cable network, according to two sources. The DVR producer is said by Bloomberg to be talking with more than one pay-per-view provider to either allow its recording directly or else to license out the technology for third-party hardware or software. Details are vague, but it would be separate from online-only support for Amazon VOD, Netflix and other services.
An expected replacement for DirecTV TiVo DVRs that would allow them to record HD programming has been delayed yet again, as revealed by TiVo's CEO Tom Rogers in the company's recent quarterly earnings call. Instead of sometime in 2009, the new expected date for the upgraded products is early in 2010. No specific reason was given for the delay, though it is likely tied to TiVo's loss of $4.1 million during the past quarter.
DirecTV this morning said it would merge with the eventual spinoff of Liberty Entertainment from Liberty Media. The deal is meant to simplify Liberty Media's own structure but puts the satellite TV provider together with TV channels themselves, including the Game Show Network and 3 local sports stations. Executives at DirecTV will keep their positions, though the move will still have Liberty Media founder John Malone and trusts have about a 24 percent stake in the new venture.
DirecTV has launched an app that allows customers to control their home DVR systems from an iPhone or iPod touch. A search function can be used to find shows up to 14 days in advance, or the content can be browsed by channel or date and time. The listings include additional information such as show descriptions, length and rating. Users can record single shows, an entire series or Pay Per View content.
After avoiding declaring bankruptcy last month, Sirius XM has announced plan to stream its subscription radio service to the iPhone and iPod touch this spring as part of the company's latest fiscal results conference call. The new app will let either Apple device receive Sirius or XM stations over their Internet connections without requiring a separate radio. Currently, Sirius has roughly 19 million subscribers, an improvement of about 10 percent from last year, but is being significantly slowed by plunging car sales and the absence of radios.
Sirius XM on Friday took emergency steps to save itself by starting a debt exchange. The company says it has started a deal that will swap about $172.5 million of the convertible senior notes keeping the company afloat for equivalents that will expire at the start of June 2011. The exchange would give the company about 1.5 years of extra time to pay the portion of the debt, which would otherwise have come due in December this year.
A DirecTV spokesperson recently announced the company has discontinued any and all development work on the HDPC-20 tuner that promised to link DirecTV's high-definition content with Windows Media Center. The HDPC-20 was first introduced at CES in 2006, or nearly three years ago. The decision to end the project was reportedly made after DirecTV missed the August 2008 update for Windows Media Center software and timing of the next release.
Satellite TV provider DirecTV and TiVo today extended their cooperation with each other and said they would work together to build a version of TiVo's digital video recorder that can properly capture HDTV from DirecTV's current network. The two provide few details but explain that the set-top box should support features specific to either company, such as TiVo's Swivel Search that can suggest shows based on the presence of certain actors or other metadata from a TV show.
Comcast's cable TV network will be all digital in the space of three years, according to claims by an unnamed senior executive at a communications company. The service provider is allegedly buying up as many six million digital-to-analog devices from Motorola and others this year as well as 12 million in 2009, all of which will be handed out to subscribers whose TVs don't support digital tuning. The move will let Comcast shut off analog cable entirely in favor of purely digital networks; the process should have all of Comcast's cable base on digital channels by 2011.
