AT&T will send LTE media broadcasts to your phone in 2015

Verizon may be the first out of the gate with LTE-based media broadcasting in the US, but it won’t be the only game in town. AT&T’s John Stankey has revealed that his carrier will have its own Multicast service (you’re looking at Verizon’s technology here) sometime in 2015. It’ll first launch in areas where AT&T can start immediately, but it should expand as the provider gets comfortable with both the technology and content partners.

There aren’t many other details at this point, although you should expect to shell out for interruption-free media; Stankey says customers have a “willingness to pay” to get music and video. That’s certainly true (just ask the many Netflix and Spotify subscribers who stream on the move), although we’re hoping that any Multicast offering isn’t simply regurgitating existing TV or radio — that didn’t work out so well for AT&T the last time around.

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, AT&T

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Inside Sky Sports’ plan to revolutionise sports news

Sky won’t care to admit it, but for the first time in a number of years, the broadcaster is facing a major challenge to its sports broadcasting crown. Still a relatively new player, BT has claimed a large chunk of Premiership football coverage last season and sunk nearly £900 million to prize away exclusive Champions League rights from its rival in 2015. It’s also slowly built up its roster of rugby, tennis, motorsport and UFC coverage, giving subscribers more than a few reasons look beyond Sky for access to major sporting events.

While Sky has been forced to acquiesce, mostly due to anti-competitive measures put in place by regulators, it isn’t prepared to let its rivals captialise on their extended coverage. In June, it dealt a blow to BT’s European football expansion with the launch of Sky Sports 5, a new channel dedicated to, you guessed it, European football. It’ll cover the Euro 2016 qualifiers, Champions League (for this season at least), La Liga, Eredivisie, Coppa Italia and Copa Del Rey. However, it’s the rebranding of another channel, Sky Sports News, that could have a bigger impact on the company’s sports coverage this year.

Enter Sky Sports News HQ.

Aside from the name change, Sky’s putting a lot of money and resources into revolutionising its sports reporting. Firstly, it’s moved the Sky Sports News HQ up the electronic programme guide (EPG) from number 405 to 401, giving it prominence ahead of its six other Sky Sports channels. Inside the studio, the company has knocked through walls to double the size of its newsroom, offering more space to dedicated reporting crews, like those handling Sky’s Formula 1 coverage, but also so it can host a huge 18 square-metre video wall that can display one big image or up to 12 separate ‘screens’ of content.

Sky’s new video wall is actually just one of 11 different positions that the Sky Sports team intend to present from. We saw a number of them (but not all) during our tour of the new studio, including a new station located just a few short paces away from the main news set called the Investigation Desk. This area features a small display that will serve breaking updates as they happen, similar to how @BBCBreaking and @BreakingNews push important announcements on Twitter, to show that Sky Sports News HQ is following a story from the minute it breaks.

During reports, presenters are encouraged to the leave the safety of their seats and move away to one of the new presenting positions. Karen Wilmington, head of output for Sky Sports News HQ, tells us that because viewers have become accustomed to the lights and cameras inside a newsroom, they can take advantage of new areas to help viewers, and also employees, become more involved.

Involvement is a key theme in Sky’s new focus, and social media will play a huge part in that. The Investigation Desk will show tweets from Sky Sports journalists in the field, or maybe a photo shared by a high-profile footballer ahead of a big money transfer, but they will all be collated, analysed and displayed with help from its social media desk.

From today, the cameras will also track presenters to an area of the studio dedicated to the social desk. Sky Sports researchers have access to at least eight screens pulling in feeds from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine and the Web, allowing Sky Sports News HQ anchors to add a bit of colour to reports with media shared in real time. “The other thing about Twitter, in 140 characters you only say what you want to say,” notes Sky Sports News Executive Editor Andy Cairns. “What’s not said is often as interesting or more interesting.”

To celebrate today’s launch, Sky has overhauled its website, mobile and tablet apps, offering more content, increased functionality and new designs. The Football Score Centre app, Sky Sports’ most popular, now includes a new video section, more detailed match statistics courtesy of Opta, previews, video clips and a wider variety of push notifications. While you were only able to receive match alerts for one team before, the updated app allows for up to four teams and individual matches. The Sky Sports iOS and Android apps have also been revamped and now feature breaking news alerts and access to user polls.

As Sky Sports News HQ takes its first tentative steps, it’s plain to see that it’s no longer just a newsroom. Viewers are not only consumers, they’re now asked to interact with presenters and the wider team. With better channel placement and a commitment to engaging with the two million plus viewers, Sky hopes that Sky Sports News HQ will play a key role in fending off competition from BT Sport, especially when its rival takes more of its key sports coverage next year.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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CBS is making shows that you won’t see on conventional TV

CBS might not have embraced internet video with open arms in the past, but it’s certainly warming up to the concept this year. CEO Les Moonves has revealed that the broadcaster is producing shows for “major streaming companies” (think Amazon, Hulu and Netflix) as well as “other emerging distributors.” While the exec isn’t dishing out details just yet, he added that CBS will announce its collaborations “shortly.”

This isn’t a completely novel approach for CBS, which toyed with the prospect of making a Netflix show back in 2012. However, it still means that the company is creating shows that most likely won’t air on its own TV channels — a big step when many rivals are still reluctant to give online services their latest conventional programming, let alone an incentive for people to drop their cable subscriptions. Mind you, it’s not hard to see the financial motivations involved. Netflix just recently overtook HBO in revenue, based in part on exclusive shows like House of Cards; while it still has a long way to go on profit, there’s now a lot of money on the table for studios that make internet-only hits.

[Image credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Dish nabs A&E shows for its streaming television service

If you’re a Dish customer in need of a prolonged Wahlburgers fix, well, you’re in luck. The satellite TV provider has renewed its deal with A&E Networks to keep all that kooky, faux-informational content flowing into your living rooms. That by itself isn’t much to get worked up over, but here’s the kicker: The renewal also means Dish now has the rights to stream live and on-demand shows through a “future multi-stream subscription service”… also known as the internet television service it’s been trying to get off the ground.

The deal, which also gives Dish access to content from A&E-owned channels like Lifetime and History, isn’t the first bit of wind in its streaming sails. You see, earlier this year, Dish locked up the rights to stream stuff from Disney’s massive portfolio, which includes media from ABC and ESPN. A fully fleshed-out online television service still seems like a ways off (despite a tentative summer launch date), but the proliferation of high-speed data connections and services like Netflix and Aereo means we’re more than happy spending gobs of time watching television shows away from our televisions. If the end result is as cheap as rumors suggest, Dish just may have a game changer in store for us… even if it doesn’t actually make them any money.

Filed under: HD

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Source: Dish

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