Verizon FiOS TV Launches ESPN Fantasy Football Interactive TV Widget

--Rolls Out its Interactive Media Guide in Multiple New Markets
--Expands its Line-Up of VOD Programming

Verizon has provided more information on the new FiOS TV ESPN Fantasy Football interactive TV widget that [itvt] first covered in Issue 8.06 Part 3B. The new widget allows viewers to access real-time scores and statistics from their ESPN.com fantasy teams through five main features: 1) My Match-Up, which tracks total fantasy points for a viewer's weekly match-up, including individual player fantasy points; 2) Box Score, which calculates total fantasy points for a viewer's team and that week's opponent; 3) Roster, which indicates a viewer's individual player game stats, such as "B. Farve/NYJ@MIAMI 1 p.m."; 4) Player Cards, which offers player photos, statistics and the viewer's points for the day and season, along with player news; and 5) Scoring Leaders, which keeps track of the top 50 fantasy players. "FiOS TV gives fantasy football fans an experience they can't get from cable or satellite," Shawn Strickland, Verizon's VP of marketing, said in a prepared statement. "We're offering one-touch access to up-to-the-minute, real-time scores and statistics that fantasy team enthusiasts crave. Our statistics are continually updated so fantasy players always know where their team stands....The immense two-way capacity of our fiber network allows us to continually introduce interactive capabilities that give our customers richer, more robust and personalized entertainment experiences." The new Fantasy Football application can be accessed via any ESPN channel or through FiOS TV widgets or games.

In related news:

1) Verizon FiOS TV recently rolled out its Interactive Media Guide (IMG)--an offering that enables a range of interactive TV services--in a number of new markets, including Tampa Bay, Southeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware, North Texas, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Virginia. Services enabled by the IMG include:

• Streaming of recorded HD video: Verizon's Home Media DVR allows subscribers to stream recorded HD programming to six other TV sets equipped with HD set-tops (note: this feature has been available for SD programming for some time now). The feature includes the ability to watch three separately recorded shows on three sets at the same time, and to pause recorded programming in one room and resume watching it in another.
• New channel-sorting options: subscribers can create two separate lists of favorite channels for family members, and can also filter channels in the guide by genre.
• Return to paused programming: subscribers can pause live programming, change channels, and then return to the paused program and resume viewing where they left off.
• Various interactive TV widgets, including apps providing daily national news and sports headlines, community news based on the subscriber's zip code (note: the widget features information submitted by local municipalities), horoscopes, and information on the most popular programs currently being broadcast in the subscriber's region and on the FiOS VOD platform.
• Instant upgrades: subscribers can use their remote control to subscribe to premium channel packages from such companies as HBO, directly from the VOD menu. In addition, DVR-equipped subscribers can use their remotes to upgrade to Verizon's Home Media DVR service.
• Free casual games, including chess, solitaire, wordplay and Sudoku games (note: the games are accessed from the FiOS TV Main Menu).
• VOD performance enhancement.

In addition, a number of new IMG features are currently being rolled out or are scheduled to roll out in the near future. They include:

• The new Fantasy Football application (see above).
• "My Videos," a service that allows subscribers to access personal videos stored on their computers and play them back on their TV sets (note: the service is accessed through Verizon's Media Manager service, which allows subscribers to stream personal music and photographs from their PC's to their TV's).
• Remote DVR programming: subscribers equipped with FiOS TV's Media Manager service can remotely program their DVR's and set parental controls through select Verizon Wireless handsets and through Verizon's TV Central Web site.
• In a keynote speech at the recent TelcoTV conference, John Harrobin, Verizon's SVP of marketing and digital media, revealed that the company is working on an ITV widget that will enable certain features of social networking service, Facebook, on the FiOS TV platform.

2) Verizon continues to expand FiOS TV's line-up of VOD programming:

• The company says that the service is now offering over 1,000 high-definition VOD titles each month, including content from movie channels, Starz, Showtime and Sundance, as well as from Big Ten Network, Flow TV, Octane TV and Ripe TV (note: it claims to have achieved this milestone two months ahead of schedule). The service offers a total of 11,000 titles per month, around 8,500 of which are free-to-view.
• The company has launched broadcast network ABC's VOD service across its networks. The service makes episodes of ABC shows available a day after their linear broadcast, free of charge and in HD. In accordance with Disney-ABC Television Group's VOD policy, Verizon has disabled fast-forward for all ABC VOD content on its platform: Disney-ABC originally trialed fast-forward-disabled VOD in California last year; it claims that research conducted during the trial by Knowledge Networks/Statistical Research showed that 93% of end-users felt that being unable to skip through commercials was an acceptable price to pay for free access to ABC programming.
• In time for the US presidential election, the company began offering political programming from CSPAN on its VOD service. Other programmers whose content recently debuted on the service include Big Ten Network, Si TV, Concert TV, FLIX, The Jewish Channel, and Shalom TV. In addition, the service recently featured 85 movies from the Warner Bros. 85th Anniversary Movie Vault.