I found this on the ACTV home page. They are very strong with FOXS. It seems to me that a deal between ACTV and QSTI is logical as we will provide unique content for them.
ACTV Entertainment is creating regional individualized television networks throughout the United States. These networks will feature sports programming that is provided through the Company's alliances with FOX Sports Net. In addition to FOX Sports Net, ACTV has two key strategic partners that have invested in the Company: Liberty Media and General Instrument.
Traditional sports telecasts (like those offered by FOX Sports Net) of local professional and college teams represent the most popular cable network programming, based on total viewership. By adding individualized television elements to an already desirable product, the Company will offer digital subscribers the most innovative and highest quality sports programming available anywhere. For distribution of its individualized networks, the Company is targeting cable operators within each region that, like TCI, have converted or will soon convert their systems to digital delivery.
The Company has the rights to license FOX Sports Net programming from each of FOX's regional sports affiliates and to use it to create individualized sports telecasts, which the Company can offer to any distributor that carries the corresponding regional FOX Sports Net channel. The FOX Sports Net agreement extends through June 2003.
Tommy Lasorda joins ACTV
EntertainmentManagement
at the Western Cable Show.
FOX Sports Net is a service of "National Sports Partners," a joint venture between Cablevision's Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc. and FOX/Liberty Networks, which is a 50/50 partnership between News Corp. and Tele-Communications, Inc.'s Liberty Media Corporation. Equally owned by FOX/Liberty Networks and Cablevision's Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc., the new venture now reaches more than 58 million homes nationwide.
The Company will be launching its first regional network during the second half of 1999 in the area served by FOX Sports Southwest, which distributes programming to over 5 million households in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and nine New Mexico counties. ACTV's regional network will feature individualized telecasts of professional basketball (Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs), hockey (Dallas Stars), and baseball (Texas Rangers, Houston Astros), along with college sports events from the Big 12, Southeastern, Southland and Western Athletic conferences.
Sports fans can call up exciting new
features like "Quick Take" player profiles.
ACTV's new digital master control facility
located in Dallas, Texas. The Company has an agreement with TCI, under which the cable operator will initially distribute ACTV's individualized sports programming to its digital subscribers in the Dallas, Texas area. The agreement also contemplates distribution throughout the region served by FOX Sports Southwest, with the potential for nationwide distribution by TCI of the Company's future regional sports networks.
The Company plans to set up similar operations in other regions served by FOX Sports Net affiliates..
To produce and distribute programming for its first network, the Company has constructed a state-of-the-art master control in a facility it shares with FOX Sports Southwest near Dallas, Texas. During a live sports production, the Company's master control receives multiple video/audio feeds from Fox Sports Southwest via fiber lines. ACTV's production team creates and adds individualized programming elements, and digitally encodes the content. The program is distributed via fiber to cable operators, who transmit it to ACTV's individualized network subscribers. The Company will also offer satellite transmission of its programming throughout the Southwest region.
The regional networks will generate revenues from advertising, in addition to subscriber fees. Individualized television gives an advertiser the chance to deliver a targeted message to each viewer. The program can solicit viewer responses to basic demographic questions at the beginning of an individualized telecast, then can recall this information during a commercial and automatically send the viewer the most appropriate advertisement. Alternatively, just before a commercial break, the program can ask the viewer to indicate his or her preference within a particular product categories. For example, the viewer can be prompted as to the preferred car model among a number of choices offered by a given manufacturer. Research shows that when a viewer participates in the selection of a commercial's content in this way, recall of the ad is significantly enhanced.
Over time, the Company plans to add a variety of other types of individualized entertainment programs to its regional networks. These may include news, game shows, children's programs and music videos.
|
