tennis

Because the [itvt] editorial team is on the road this week, we are covering stories in this edition of the newsletter in round-up format:

Due to the large volume of news generated over the past few days, we are covering today's stories in abbreviated round-up/summary form:

ESPN has teamed with DirecTV to offer interactive TV coverage of the Australian Open tennis tournament.

Because the [itvt] editorial team has been on the road the past few weeks, we are covering recent news stories in summary/round-up form. We apologize for any inconvenience to our readers. We will resume our regular format and publishing schedule tomorrow (Tuesday).

Satellite TV provider, DirecTV, is offering interactive TV coverage of the French Open tennis championship. The company says that it will offer over 350 hours of interactive coverage during the championship's first eight days, thanks to partnerships with the Tennis Channel and ESPN2.

US satellite-TV provider, DirecTV, has announced plans to offer extensive interactive TV coverage of the upcoming US Open tennis championship (August 31st-September 7th). The coverage will include five extra live court channels, in addition to the main feeds from ESPN2 and CBS, on DirecTV's multiscreen Mix Channel.

The BBC on Monday released viewership statistics for its red-button and broadband video coverage of this year's Wimbledon tennis tournament. According to the corporation:

The PGA of America and Turner Sports announced Thursday that they have extended their broadcasting and interactive media agreements covering the PGA Championship, the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, and the PGA.com Web site through 2019. Among other things, the extended deal will see Turner's Cartoon Network Enterprises arm serving as the PGA's licensing agent for the youth market, and will see Turner and the PGA collaborating on a number of interactive/social media initiatives designed to increase the PGA's brand recognition among key audiences and to introduce new, younger audiences to learning, playing and following golf.

Among the extended partnership's interactive media-related elements:

Webcasting specialist, iStreamPlanet, said Monday that it has been tapped by Microsoft to help deliver live streaming and on-demand coverage of the Wimbledon Championships for NBC Sports' Wimbledon Live service on NBCSports.com. According to the company, it will manage the encoding of live coverage of the tennis championship, as well as design and deploy a custom Microsoft Silverlight-based "media experience" that will leverage Microsoft Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS) Smooth Streaming adaptive bit rate technology (adapts the video stream in accordance with the limitations of the end-user's broadband connection).

Satellite-TV provider, DirecTV, launched an interactive TV application called ScoreGuide, Monday, that extends its program guide with information targeted at sports fans. Viewers are alerted to the new application--which is being offered at no additional charge--by a small on-screen icon that is being displayed on all of DirecTV's approximately 200 sports channels (which include regional sports networks, subscription channels, and national cable channels devoted to sports).

Satellite TV provider, DirecTV, recently offered an interactive TV
application to accompany its coverage of the French Open tennis
tournament. Dubbed French Open Interactive and available from May
25th through June 1st, the application was developed by DirecTV in
partnership with the Tennis Channel and ESPN2. It offered complete
coverage of play on five courts during the tournament's first six days,
and eight hours of coverage on Saturday, May 31st and Sunday, June
1st: according to DirecTV, the service offered a total of 350 hours of
tournament coverage. At the core of the service was a "mix" channel
that allowed viewers to watch up to six live matches simultaneously,