DirecTV’s CFO Discusses 100 HD Channels & Standalone HD Networks

According to an article from Multichannel News, DirecTV says its upcoming lineup of 100 HD channels will include feeds from sports packages such as the NFL Sunday Ticket and MLB’s Extra Innings.

DIRECTV has said it will offer 100 national HDTV channels by year’s end, and Multichannel News reports that DirecTV CFO Michael Palkovic says the satcaster has 70 HD channels under contract.  The company has announced deals with several HD channels yet-to-be launched, including CNN, USA Network, Sci-Fi Channel, the Cartoon Network and The Weather Channel.  Palkovic also added that the 100-channel lineup will include feeds from Sunday Ticket, MLB’s Extra Innings and other sports packages. 

Palkovic said the Sunday Ticket, for example, which offers 13 different NFL games each week, would count as 13 HD channels. “That’s the way you would count that,” Palkovic told Multichannel News.

He said that about 70 or 80 channels would be 24/7, year-round HD channels, and he discounted speculation that DirecTV would add the 15-channel HD lineup from Voom: “First of all, there are no Voom channels, there is nothing like that that people would consider not really quality channels.  We’re talking USA, Sci Fi, some of the Turner networks, The Weather Channel, mainstream programming that’s been around for a long time that’s going to make the leap to HD.”