pradike

Here are some of the high points conveyed during the WEBcast conference call with DirecTV this afternoon:

1) By no later than 2/21, DirecTV will have confirmed the exact date of shipping of the 7s satellite to SeaLaunch. According to Eddy Hartenstein, it is still on target for an end of March, 2004 launch and late April, early May activation of any broadcasting from that device. Addiitional local channels AND HDTV channels are the main planned tranmissions from that sat. The next sat about 9 months later will be mainly for HDTV. Long term plan is to include local HDTV offerings.

2) DirecTV is aggressively pursuing the PVR market, and plans to expand the present 700,000 PVR users to 1 Million by the end of the year. To help achieve that, they plan to "see to it" that the costs of the PVRs go down, and further cost reductions are achieved through "common core components", regardless of brand. They emphasized that a base unit could be common, while perhaps the other half could be tailered by brand and/or onboard software (such as TIVO).

3) The HDTV content in 2004 "should double by year end", and "the plan is to add only quality content, not just channels for the sake of having HDTV".
Fox & NFL Ticket expanded HDTV by fall will happen for sure, with other content being negotiated. Regional sports HDTV are also in the plans.

4) DirecTV intends "to be the leader in HDTV content and PVR usage" going forward, and expect marketing and package incentives to acienve those targets in 2004 and 2005.

5) The new management team is focused on expanding the "customer experience" with "expanded and high quality content", and committed to the "capital investments that previous management did not seem to consider as necesary" as the new group.

All in all, things appear to be firming up for an interesting 2004 and beyond.

chasfh

Did they finally announce that date?