basketball

--By Steve Donohue

The [itvt] editorial team will be on the road this week and next, so we will be covering most stories in round-up/summary form, and we anticipate that there will be some additional interruptions of our regular news publishing schedule beyond that. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers.

CBS Sports contacted [itvt] Wednesday to let us know that it has tapped South African-born two-time NBA MVP, Steve Nash, for a project that will see him traveling to South Africa and filing a series of video segments and reports on the 2010 World Cup, as well as interacting with viewers through social media. The reports will be produced in partnership with Nash's production company, Meathawk.

The [itvt] editorial team is on the road this week, so we are covering most stories in round-up/summary form, and we anticipate that there will be some additional interruptions of our regular news publishing schedule beyond that. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers.

The [itvt] editorial team will be on the road this week and next, so we will be covering most stories in round-up/summary form, and we anticipate that there will be some additional interruptions of our regular news publishing schedule beyond that. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is a round-up of interactive TV-related news pertaining primarily to the broadband TV/OTT space:

Turner Sports last week released viewership/usage statistics for its multiplatform coverage of the 2009-10 NBA regular season. According to the company (which jointly manages NBA Digital and the latter's line-up of broadband video and mobile offerings with the NBA):

Here is a round-up of some other recent interactive TV-related stories that we didn't have room for in this issue:

CBS on Tuesday released traffic statistics for March Madness on Demand (MMOD), the broadband video service it offers for the annual NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. According to the broadcaster:

Turner Broadcasting-owned cable channel, TNT, and NBA Digital, the new media arm of the National Basketball Association (NBA), will tonight (Thursday) present a special interactive edition of the show "TNT NBA Thursday," (airs at 8:00PM Eastern) that integrates TNT, NBA TV and NBA.com.

The National Basketball Association's (NBA) NBA Digital arm has launched a two-screen interactive TV application, called NBA TV Companion, that is available on NBA.com and on individual NBA team sites. According to NBA Digital, key features of the new application, which is designed to be used in conjunction with live game telecasts, include:

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

AT&T is providing Dallas and Fort Worth-area customers of its Microsoft Mediaroom-powered IPTV service, U-verse TV, with a "Dallas Mavericks Multiview" interactive TV application intended to enhance their viewing of Dallas Mavericks basketball games. The application is a team-specific implementation of the new AT&T U-verse TV Multiview application format that was profiled in an article published on itvt.com, September 14th (note: an example of AT&T U-verse TV's new Sports Multiview application, which has been rolled out nationally, can be seen below).

--Forms Audience-Measurement Partnership with TNS

US satellite TV provider, DirecTV, continues to roll out interactive TV
services as an integral part of its sports coverage and of its service
offering in general (note: the company is also expected to launch a
VOD service this quarter; a report in the Wall Street Journal stated that
the service will employ a combination of push-VOD and broadband
technologies: a small selection of popular titles will be pushed to
subscribers' DVR's, while around 3,000 titles will be available via those
DVRs' broadband connections, the newspaper said). Among the
highlights: