Post by Skaggs on Feb 11, 2008 14:23:39 GMT -5
ESPN promises around 1000 games in HD this year
by George Winslow -- Multichannel News, 2/11/2008
Link to article
With the fifth anniversary of the 2003 launch of ESPN HD coming up on March 30, ESPN continues to invest heavily to expand its high-definition programming, by launching new HD channels and expanding its HD event coverage.
“In 2008, there will be over 1000 games on ESPN and ESPN2,” vice president of strategic business planning and development Bryan Burns said. “In 2003 we did 87, in 2004 it was 183 and in 2007 it was 847 games.”
And that doesn’t describe the full scope of ESPN’s HD investment. A high-def feed for ESPNews will launch March 30, and on August 28 the programmers will launch an HD feed for ESPNU. It will produce about 100 games in HD during the rest of 2008 on top of the 1000-plus games for ESPN and ESPN2.
The company also plans to launch HD channels internationally. The first one is set to bow in Australia on Foxtel in mid-2008.
Those efforts are part of the much larger effort by ESPN’s parent The Walt Disney Co. to boost its HD offerings. Also on March 30, Disney will launch Disney HD, Toon Disney HD and ABC Family HD.
As ESPN’s networks expand their HD offerings, the company is also investing in new facilities and infrastructure, according to ESPN vice president of systems engineering and technology support Bill Lamb.
ESPN is finishing construction of a new studio and production control room in its Bristol, Conn., digital center for ESPNews’ HD launch. It is also building a new facility in Los Angeles next to the Staples Center and is constructing a 10-gigabyte national backbone to transport signals between Los Angeles, New York and Bristol.
The Los Angeles facility won’t be completed until spring 2009, but Burns expects to start running traffic over their new national backbone in early March of this year.
To prepare for additional international feeds in HD, ESPN also deployed 8 HD-capable master controls in Bristol. “They don’t have all the bells and whistles but we can very rapidly prepare those rooms for full HD use as soon as the channels are launched,” Lamb said.
These are all considerable investments, but Lamb said the significant premium between the cost of producing HD and standard def content has declined to only 5% to 10%. “When you consider the whole cost of building one of these facilities, the extra cost for hardware isn’t that great,” he said.
Adding more on-demand HD content is not a priority, however. “Our bread and butter is live TV that is [digital video recorder]-proof,” Burns said. “We’ll do VOD offerings from time to time, but it is not a main focus.”
The lack of data on HD viewing remains a constant frustration for ESPN and other programmers.
According to Burns, outside research and ESPN’s own internal research indicates that sports programming is driving HDTV set purchases. Once consumers buy HDTVs, they are also much more likely to watch HD programming.
“Set-top box data from Charter [Communications’] systems in Los Angeles found that viewing of ESPN HD was 22% higher” than standard def feeds, Burns said.
by George Winslow -- Multichannel News, 2/11/2008
Link to article
With the fifth anniversary of the 2003 launch of ESPN HD coming up on March 30, ESPN continues to invest heavily to expand its high-definition programming, by launching new HD channels and expanding its HD event coverage.
“In 2008, there will be over 1000 games on ESPN and ESPN2,” vice president of strategic business planning and development Bryan Burns said. “In 2003 we did 87, in 2004 it was 183 and in 2007 it was 847 games.”
And that doesn’t describe the full scope of ESPN’s HD investment. A high-def feed for ESPNews will launch March 30, and on August 28 the programmers will launch an HD feed for ESPNU. It will produce about 100 games in HD during the rest of 2008 on top of the 1000-plus games for ESPN and ESPN2.
The company also plans to launch HD channels internationally. The first one is set to bow in Australia on Foxtel in mid-2008.
Those efforts are part of the much larger effort by ESPN’s parent The Walt Disney Co. to boost its HD offerings. Also on March 30, Disney will launch Disney HD, Toon Disney HD and ABC Family HD.
As ESPN’s networks expand their HD offerings, the company is also investing in new facilities and infrastructure, according to ESPN vice president of systems engineering and technology support Bill Lamb.
ESPN is finishing construction of a new studio and production control room in its Bristol, Conn., digital center for ESPNews’ HD launch. It is also building a new facility in Los Angeles next to the Staples Center and is constructing a 10-gigabyte national backbone to transport signals between Los Angeles, New York and Bristol.
The Los Angeles facility won’t be completed until spring 2009, but Burns expects to start running traffic over their new national backbone in early March of this year.
To prepare for additional international feeds in HD, ESPN also deployed 8 HD-capable master controls in Bristol. “They don’t have all the bells and whistles but we can very rapidly prepare those rooms for full HD use as soon as the channels are launched,” Lamb said.
These are all considerable investments, but Lamb said the significant premium between the cost of producing HD and standard def content has declined to only 5% to 10%. “When you consider the whole cost of building one of these facilities, the extra cost for hardware isn’t that great,” he said.
Adding more on-demand HD content is not a priority, however. “Our bread and butter is live TV that is [digital video recorder]-proof,” Burns said. “We’ll do VOD offerings from time to time, but it is not a main focus.”
The lack of data on HD viewing remains a constant frustration for ESPN and other programmers.
According to Burns, outside research and ESPN’s own internal research indicates that sports programming is driving HDTV set purchases. Once consumers buy HDTVs, they are also much more likely to watch HD programming.
“Set-top box data from Charter [Communications’] systems in Los Angeles found that viewing of ESPN HD was 22% higher” than standard def feeds, Burns said.