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To: Stoctrash who wrote (49533)	6/17/2000 10:42:00 AM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

PVR deals........................................ multichannel.com Broadband Week for June 19, 2000 PVR Players Land Deals for Enhanced Set-Tops By JIM FORKAN June 19, 2000 Just as there was a spate of interactive-television-advertising deals during May, there was also a flurry of activity in personal-video-recorder agreements last week. America Online Inc. and TiVo Inc. signed a three-year strategic agreement, while DirecTV Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Thomson Multimedia formed an alliance that some industry observers saw as the satellite industry's response to "AOL TV." These PVR-related agreements will expand consumers' interactivity with their TV sets. But since PVRs also empower viewers to zap or fast-forward through commercials, none of these deals alleviated the concerns of those who buy or sell advertising, whether national or local. Under the AOL/TiVo pact, TiVo will become a programming partner in AOL TV, and AOL will invest "up to $200 million" in TiVo and receive warrants to buy additional TiVo shares. AOL TV subscribers will get access to TiVo's "Personal TV Service" as of early 2001, when the AOL TV-branded set-top box incorporating TiVo's features should reach retailers, the companies said. Initially, AOL TV will use a set-top box running on a Liberate Technologies platform. TiVo owners can record television programming digitally, without videotape. They can also pause live TV fare, as well as enabling instant replay and slow motion. With the click of a button, they can automatically find and record every episode of The Simpsons or Baywatch that airs, for example, or even every program that stars, say, William Shatner. The RCA DirecTV system, the "RCA DS4290RE," with Microsoft's WebTV Networks' "UltimateTV" service -- due to hit retail stores in time for the Christmas holiday season -- will add digital-video recording, interactivity and Internet access. Last month, Showtime Networks Inc. signed with TiVo to enable the pay service's subscribers who also own TiVo devices to click on an "Ipreview" icon and preplan recording of upcoming Showtime movies, series or boxing events. Basic network Home & Garden Television inked a similar deal. Showtime also linked with ReplayTV Inc. on a Father's Day promotion running through July 31 -- a $50 rebate on a Showtime subscription when a consumer buys any ReplayTV unit. ReplayTV owners can program their own "ReplayTV Zone" channels based on genre or program. ReplayTV and Nielsen Media Research signed an agreement in principle in April to develop, test and implement software systems for measuring ReplayTV's audience. PVR sales at retail are expected to jump as more and more agreements are made to embed that technology within future TV sets. For instance, Sony Corp. late last month began selling its "Sony Digital Network Recorder" with TiVo. Meanwhile, ReplayTV includes Panasonic Consumer Electronics among its hardware partners. Elsewhere in the personal-video field, Liberate and News Corp.'s London-based NDS Group plc agreed last week to integrate NDS' personalized "XTV" technology into Liberate's TV platform and to license it worldwide to various consumer-electronics manufacturers. Liberate and NDS will also co-market their joint developments. Several ad-agency executives expressed concerns about what PVRs might do to their commercials' effectiveness at a Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau conference in March. So did some clients at an Association of National Advertisers forum. At the CAB confab, TiVo chief programming officer Stacy Jolna sought to allay their fears by noting that investors in the company include ad agencies and TV and cable companies. ReplayTV vice president of business development Randall McCurdy likewise stressed to MSOs at the recent National Show that its technology can help them to deliver targeted, interactive ads to their customers. ReplayTV named Michael Teicher senior vice president of ad sales in April. He had held a similar post at Turner Broadcasting Sales Inc.'s global-client-solutions division. Still, cable operators voiced their fears at the local level two weeks ago during a CAB Local Cable Sales Management Conference session featuring Liberty Digital CEO Lee Masters, who pointed out that his company invests in both TiVo and ReplayTV. Masters said, "I don't have an answer" on PVRs' potential negative impact on ad sales. Whether it's PVRs or Napster Inc., new technology "presents phenomenal opportunities and phenomenal challenges," he added. "We're all inundated with advertising," he said. "When reading magazines, you're in control and rip past ad pages" that are deemed uninteresting. And that's where PVRs will play a role, he felt. When Charter Communications Inc. vice president of ad sales Wes Hart asked about the likelihood that PVRs could replace scheduled spots, Masters said, "They can do it, but it's unlikely to be done. These companies don't want to raise the ire of the advertisers any more than they may have already." Later, a Cable One Inc. manager was among several operators to complain privately that Masters soft-pedaled PVRs' negative impact on advertising because Liberty has stakes in both PVR companies.

To: Stoctrash who wrote (49533)	6/17/2000 10:46:00 AM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

AOLTV launches Monday............................ dailynews.yahoo.com Thursday June 15 4:03 PM ET AOL to Rely on Popular Features As Lure to AOLTV By Reshma Kapadia NEW YORK (Reuters) - Internet media and services giant America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) plans to use popular features like online instant chat to lure its 22.5 million subscribers to its new interactive television service that aims to marry TV to the Internet. The service, to be called AOLTV, will be unveiled on Monday, and marketing will focus initially on existing AOL members, who will have to pay an additional fee to be announced next week and purchase a set-top box that will cost $200 to $300, a top AOL official told Reuters. AOL Interactive Services President Barry Schuler said in an interview that the company sees the next 12 to 24 months as an experimental and innovation phase for interactive TV. Speak your mind Discuss this story with other people. [Start a Conversation] (Requires Yahoo! Messenger) ``Interactive TV has been tried before. TV is such a strong habit and you run a lot of risk messing around with people's TVs,'' he said. ``Obviously, we are in a different phase than seven to eight years ago when it was first tried. Now we have all these consumers who are being interactive, so they are more predisposed to this.'' The first version of the service will include an electronic program guide that will help users navigate through channels, AOL features such as e-mail and instant messaging, and new forms of interactive programming that will pop up around TV programming. Over the next year, versions other than the initial service's cable companion box will be available, including a satellite set-top box and a box that incorporates TiVo Inc.'s (NasdaqNM:TIVO - news) personalized TV functions in both cable and satellite platforms that lets subscribers create their own TV schedule and customize live TV shows. The Internet giant, which expects to complete its merger with media firm Time Warner Inc.(NYSE:TWX - news) this fall, reached a pact with TiVo on Wednesday under which TiVo will offer its personalized TV features to AOLTV subscribers. AOL is also working on an integrated cable and AOLTV box, a prospect that thrills analysts. Some analysts believe interactive TV will reach critical mass only when it is offered through cable rather than set-top boxes. Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) is another player in the interactive TV market, with its WebTV product. Earlier this week, it unveiled a new service called UltimateTV, also intended to make TV more interactive and personalized. It plans to have the service available to DIRECTV Inc. (NYSE:GMH - news) subscribers and viewers using Thomson Multimedia's (TMM.PA) (NYSE:TMS - news) RCA set-top boxes in time for this year's holiday season. Microsoft's UltimateTV hopes to draw users with personalized TV features, such as the ability to record two programs at once or to pause live TV. Schuler, who will become chairman and chief executive of AOL after its merger with Time Warner is completed, said, ``We are not trying to convince people who have not embraced an interactive lifestyle to make their TV a connected device. I think that's hard thing to do. This is a product for AOL members.'' ``What's unique about AOLTV is that if you are an AOL member you take (AOLTV) home and plug it in and it's you. It's your screen name, your buddy list (for chatting) and your e-mail,'' he said. ``We're appealing to an audience that knows what that stuff is, so we feel we can sell the product on the merits of its AOL-ness and introduce those people to the benefits of interactive TV, which is too hard to explain in an ad or a demo in stores. Those benefits will become inherent to them later.'' AOL plans to incorporate broadband within its AOLTV product in the next 12 to 28 month, which will be possible due to Time Warner's broadband assets -- one of the major reasons AOL bought the media giant. Broadband, which provides a bigger electronic pipeline, can provide AOLTV subscribers with high-speed Internet services. For example, in AOLTV's initial configuration, viewers could check out an Internet page for a weather report while watching TV. With broadband, they could get a spoken weather report. ``We think AOLTV will be one of the killer applications for broadband,'' Schuler said. ``The issue today with broadband is that we have a lot of infrastructure and deployment but no applications that anyone can get excited about. Broadband with AOLTV makes an exclusive platform -- a place where cable companies will be able to capitalize on their investments in the infrastructure by having a relationship with us.'' AOL's merger with Time Warner, which is now valued at about $118 billion based on AOL's closing price Wednesday, creates several other opportunities for AOLTV, Schuler said. ``TV is at the beginning of a transformation. The beauty of the merger is that Time Warner has got a cable plan ... It gives us an opportunity to figure out how to make it work for the cable industry,'' Schuler said. ``They have got the content players and there also, our strategy is to work with every single network, and broadcasters can program their own interactive channels. ``But because we have HBO and Turner in the family, they can be out on the leading edge, again demonstrating what works, and stimulate them to jump in. As AOL TimeWarner, I think we can drive this category faster than we ever could as AOL. For Time Warner, it now can play a leadership role in the transformation and how it plays out rather than being a victim of the transformation, which happens to many traditional companies.''