DIRECTV NewsA Blog on Satellite TV News

The third season of Indian Premier League (IPL) kicks off today and concludes on April 25. IPL promoted by Indian cricket board and launched in 2008 is a 20Twenty championship tournament. The first edition IPL 1 held in India and the second was moved to South Africa due to General elections in India.

The 60 game IPL 3 tournament is back in India featuring eight franchisees. Five new venues have been included this season that includes Nagpur, Cuttack, Navi Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala.

DirecTV brings 2010 IPL to cricket fans in United States. DirecTV subscribers with CricketTicket can watch the IPL tournaments live in United States.

Broadcast schedule of 2010 IPL matches on DirecTV in United States.

Following is the 2010 IPL Points Table

ReelzChannel has partnered with Lionsgate and DirecTV to promote the Academy Award winning movie Precious in PPV & VOD. Precious, which won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Mo’Nique) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Geoffrey Fletcher).

ReelzChannel’s partnership includes cross-channel inventory, provided by DirecTV, which is designed to encourage consumers to purchase Precious on DIRECTV Cinema as of March 9, 2010. The spots, produced by REELZCHANNEL, will also drive traffic to REELZCHANNEL on DIRECTV channel 238 and www.reelzchannel.com/Precious where the network will showcase exclusive Precious content provided by Lionsgate, such as set photos, facts sheets, production notes, clips and bonus features.

John deGarmo SVP of Affiliate Relations for ReelzChannel said, “With the right titles REELZCHANNEL believes there is a future in creating special promotions that include studios and distributors working with REELZCHANNEL to raise interest in titles and drive VOD/PPV revenue. Lionsgate has stepped forward to pioneer this effort and increase the support for Precious. We look forward to seeing the buy rates for this movie increase as a result of this groundbreaking partnership.”

Kate Neligan, Director of On Demand & Digital Marketing for Lionsgate, said “Lionsgate is excited to co-promote Precious with REELZCHANNEL and DIRECTV Cinema in this innovative partnership where we believe we can expand the reach of the film’s important messages to a larger audience through the VOD/PPV platform.”

Sarah Lyons, Vice President of Upgrade Marketing, DirecTV, said “We are happy to be partnering with both REELZCHANNEL and Lionsgate to provide the award-winning movie Precious with a national platform to continue delivering its powerful message. We understand the importance of having the highest-quality movies available for our customers to choose from and we strive to deliver the most robust lineup of box office hits on the DIRECTV Cinema platform.”

DirecTV announced that it partners with FOX Sports and NASCAR to present inaugural DIRECTV’s NASCAR Head-2-Head Knockout competition.

DIRECTV’s NASCAR Head-2-Head Knockout competition will be innovative new bracket-format competition amongst 32 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers in a high-stakes contest over the course of four races during the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule.

The prize money for both drivers and spectators alike as winning drivers with a total of $500,000 will be donated to charity during the course of the NASCAR Head-2-Head Knockout competition.

Viewers can also take a chance to win a new car and the ultimate prize, a check for $1 million dollars by picking a perfect bracket. Fans can enter their brackets starting April 11 on www.directv.com/nascar.

The schedule for inaugural DIRECTV’s NASCAR Head-2-Head Knockout competition in 2010 is as follows:

• Round One on April 18 (Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway)
• Round Two on April 25 (Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway)
• Round Three on May 1 (Crown Royal presents “The Heath Calhoun 400″, Richmond International Raceway)
• “The Fastest Four” on May 8 (Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway)

Jon Gieselman, senior vice president of Advertising and Public Relations for DIRECTV, said “Given DIRECTV’s passion for absolutely anything sports related, we’re excited to partner with NASCAR and FOX to showcase some of the intense rivalries that we all know exist within the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. “It will be exciting to watch the mano-a-mano match-ups unfold, creating a whole new competitive dynamic for our customers to enjoy on four Sundays this spring.”

Jim O’Connell, NASCAR’s Vice President of Corporate Marketing and International Development, said “DIRECTV’s NASCAR Head-2-Head Knockout competition is another example of DIRECTV’s commitment to NASCAR® and our fans. We are thrilled to have DIRECTV as a long time partner and look forward to our fans following the match ups on the NASCAR HOTPASS broadcast.”

Spanish Broadcasting System owned Mega TV is available to Spanish speaking audiences in Puerto Rico, starting November 1. Mega TV’s launch in Puerto Rico was possible due to acquisition of new technology by Spanish Broadcasting System.

Mega TV can be viewed on following channels on different operators:

Cable and satellite users can watch Mega TV on:

DirecTV – Channel 169

Dish Network - Channel 60

Choice – Channel 16

Liberty – Channel 45

OneLink – Channel 60

Luis Roldan, Senior Vice President, and General Manager for SBS and Mega TV in Puerto Rico, said “With these new signals, not only will everyone on the Island be able to watch our programming; we will also have a clearer image. For geographical reasons, most of our households without cable or satellite couldn’t receive our signal in the past. With this new technology, everyone on the island will enjoy Mega TV’s popular and impactful programming. We are very pleased with the acceptance that the Puerto Rican community has given us and we are committed to keep on bringing excellent programming.”

Cynthia Hudson-Fernandez, Chief Creative Officer and Executive Vice President for SBS and Managing Director of Mega TV, said “We believe that these new affiliates in Puerto Rico will enormously help our growth plan, and will guarantee our position as a leading competitor in Hispanic television. Our audience on the island has been faithful to our programming from day one, and we promise to reciprocate with the best we can offer.”

DirecTV launched local high-definition channels to its subscribers in the Minot-Bismarck-Dickinson, North Dakota. DirecTV is now offering local HD channels in 138 markets, representing more than 92 percent of U.S. TV households. Following are the local HD channels launched:

KBMY/ABC

KXMB/CBS and

KFYR/NBC

DirecTV has also added KBME/PBS in standard definition.

DirecTV subscribers must have an H20, H21 or H23 HD receiver, or an HR20, HR21 or HR23 DIRECTV Plus HD DVR and a Ka/Ku band dish to receive local HD channels.

DirecTV has announced the launch of local high-definition channels to its subscribers in the Huntsville-Decatur, Ala.  The satcaster now delivers HD broadcast channels in 132 markets, representing more than 91 percent of U.S. TV households.
Following are the local HD channels available:

APT/PBS

WHNT/CBS and

WZDX/FOX

DirecTV subscribers in Huntsville-Decatur must have an H20 or H21 HD receiver or an HR20 or HR21 DIRECTV Plus HD DVR and a Ka/Ku band dish to receive the above HD channels.

DirecTV to bring Hollywood feature-length film “The Burning Plain,” from Aug. 21 to Sept. 16 to its subscribers on DIRECTV Cinema before its theatrical release date of Sept. 17. The Burning Plain starring Academy Award winners Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger, and directed by Guillermo Arriaga, the Academy Award-nominated writer of “21 Grams” and “Babel” is an owerful and multifaceted drama about love, forgiveness and redemption.

Sarah Lyons, vice president of Marketing for DIRECTV said “DIRECTV customers have always enjoyed the convenience of ordering new release movies from the comfort of their home with the touch of a remote. But now, we are going one giant step further and giving them an advance look at a feature-length film before it even hits theaters; it’s the ultimate home theater viewing. We look forward to continuing to enhance our platform and deliver compelling programming that can’t be found anywhere else.”

DirecTV, Samsung, Broadcom and Cisco are partnering to develop a specification for a full-featured “pixel accurate” Remote User Interface (RUI) that will form the core of the new RVU technology. The RVU Alliance complements and benefits existing industry interoperability initiatives and underscores its founders’ commitment to the sharing of digital content in the connected home.

Romulo Pontual, DIRECTV’s chief technology officer said “We believe both consumers and service providers will embrace consumer electronic equipment with RVU technology because it enables a high quality digital entertainment experience throughout the connected home. We are committed to the RVU technology and are planning to deploy it in media servers and clients beginning early in 2010.”

The RVU Alliance is an Oregon-based non-profit mutual benefit corporation with membership participation at Founding Promoter, Promoter and Contributor levels.

RVU Alliance’s pixel accurate RUI technology will provide an identical user experience on all RVU-based thin clients CE devices throughout the connected home, including digital TVs (DTVs), digital media adapters (DMAs) and set-top boxes (STBs).

Thomas Rhee, Samsung’s SVP of Digital Set Top Box said “With the addition of RVU technology, device software integration process is simplified for consumer electronics manufacturers such as Samsung. We’re excited about the RVU RUI and how this technology has DLNA as its foundation.”

DirecTV has launched two local high-definition channels to its programming lineup in Columbus, OH. The satcaster has added WOSU-TV and WWHO to the subscribers in Columbus.

WWHO – owned and operated by LIN TV Corporation is the Columbus, Ohio television affiliate for The CW television network. WWHO is licensed to Chillicothe, though it operates out of a facility in Columbus with its transmitter located in Williamsport, halfway between Columbus and Chillicothe.

WOSU TV – serving extreme southern Ohio and the western edge of the Huntington-Charleston, West Virginia market area is located in Columbus, Ohio, affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service. The station’s signal covers most of central Ohio. It is owned by Ohio State University, and operates full-time satellite WPBO-TV in Portsmouth, Ohio.

DirecTV has launched local high-definition programming to its subscribers in the Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia market area. DirecTV is now offering local HD channels in 127 markets, representing more than 89 percent of U.S. TV households. Following are the local HD broadcast networks available in Roanoke-Lynchburg:

WSET/ABC

WSLS/NBC and

WBRA/PBS

DirecTV subscribers must have an H20 or H21 HD receiver or an HR20 or HR21 DIRECTV Plus HD DVR and a Ka/Ku band dish to receive these local HD programming. DirecTV offers local HD channels in standard and high-definition in 151 television markets.