--Teams with Yahoo! on Fantasy Football Interactive TV Application
--Launches HD VOD across its Footprint
--Launches Whole-Home PVR Service
AT&T has teamed with Yahoo! to launch a fantasy sports application
on its Microsoft Mediaroom-powered IPTV platform, U-verse TV.
Dubbed Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football and accessed through AT&T's
U-bar interactive interface (which also allows viewers to receive
customized sports, weather, stock and traffic information free of charge
on their TV screen), the new application lets viewers track their fantasy
football team and receive customized information on their favorite NFL
teams. "The popularity of fantasy sports is on the rise, and our
customers will be able to stay up-to-date on their leagues and teams
from the comfort of their couch, all while watching the big games,"
G.W. Shaw, AT&T's executive director of U-verse marketing, said in a
prepared statement. "Because of the powerful integration that Internet
Protocol enables, we're able to bring your personalized fantasy sports
and NFL information directly to your TV screen. You've got the games
and the stats right at your fingertips. What more could a fan want?"
In order to use the new application, viewers first set up their fantasy
league and team preferences online at football.fantasysports.yahoo.com
by using their AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet master account. The
app then automatically tracks the progress of their fantasy team,
including current team match-ups and league standings, and lets them
access the data it generates directly from their TV screen through the
AT&T U-bar. While the application is free, viewers also have the
option of spending $9.99 to purchase a real-time application, called
StatTracker, that tracks player, team and league statistics (note: they
purchase the app on the Yahoo! fantasy sports site where they set up
the Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football app). StatTracker delivers
constantly updated data to the AT&T U-bar, as well as to viewers' PC's
and mobile devices.
AT&T also says that it is enabling viewers to access more personalized
sports information through the AT&T U-bar: viewers can now access
constantly updated game stats on their favorite NFL teams, including
the top passing, rushing and touchdown stats for each player and team;
scoring logs with a brief description of how each score in the game was
made and by which player; and NFL league leaders in receiving yards,
tackles, touchdowns and more. Viewers can also now use their remote
controls to switch to a full-screen version of the U-bar; and the
application has a revamped interface with more navigation options for
accessing information while watching live programming. Other
interactive TV applications offered by AT&T in addition to Yahoo!
Sports Fantasy Football include AT&T Online Photos from Flickr
(allows viewers to use their televisions to browse and view photos they
have uploaded to Flickr.com); Yellowpages.com TV (lets viewers use
their televisions to search for local businesses and other information);
and AT&T Yahoo! Games. For the Beijing Olympics, AT&T also
offered NBC Olympics Interactive, an application that allowed viewers
to access headlines, live Olympics programming, a medal tracker and
bios of Team USA athletes.
In other AT&T U-verse TV news:
- The company has launched HD VOD to all U-verse TV customers. Its
new HD VOD service features a selection of new releases in HD
(including current titles such as "Charlie Wilson's War," and "Welcome
Home, Roscoe Jenkins"), and it says that it will expand its line-up over
the coming months. "With an extensive HD channel lineup,
HD-capable equipment in every package, excellent picture quality and
now HD VOD, AT&T U-verse TV is ready to provide the ultimate HD
viewing experience for our customers," Rich Wellerstein, AT&T's VP
of programming, said in a prepared statement. "The demand for HD
just keeps increasing, and so will our HD line-up and HD VOD
library." All AT&T U-verse packages include HD-ready equipment,
and most include an HD-capable DVR. While the company's HD VOD
offerings are available to all its customers, customers wishing to access
its 45+ HD linear channels have to pay $10 a month.
- The company has launched a whole-home PVR service--dubbed
AT&T U-verse Total Home DVR--to U-verse customers in the San
Francisco Bay Area, Dallas-Forth Worth, Fresno, Los Angeles and St.
Louis, and says it will launch it across its entire customer footprint by
the end of the year. According to the company, the service--which it is
offering at no additional charge--allows customers to watch HD and SD
recordings on their DVR on up to seven additional connected TV's in
their home with full trickplay capabilities; pause a recorded show in
one room and resume watching it at the same point in another room;
play back multiple, independent viewings of the same recorded show
on different TV's; play back up to four recorded shows at once, of
which up to three can be in HD; watch up to five HD programs
simultaneously throughout their home, including two live HD programs
and three recorded HD programs; organize recorded content by series
(series recordings are grouped as a single heading in the recorded TV
menu); store up to 37 hours of HD content or up to 133 hours of SD
content; record up to four programs at once on a single DVR; and
schedule recordings remotely from a Web-connected PC or mobile
phone. The service also "pads" recordings, by automatically adding a
minute to the beginning and two minutes to the end of each scheduled
recording, AT&T says. According to AT&T, the Total Home DVR
service will be distributed to customers via a software update, without
any need to swap out existing equipment.
- Reuters is reporting that the company plans to integrate its U-verse
service with the Apple iPhone, enabling such features as the ability to
use the iPhone as a remote control, the ability to download
programming to the iPhone from the DVR, and the ability to access
iPhone voicemail via the TV. AT&T is currently the only US wireless
carrier to offer the iPhone.
