ESPN-HD not a done deal on DirecTV!?

[Scott Greczkowski]

Earlier today I spoke with some friends at ESPN, some of the same ones who were telling me that ESPN-HD on DirecTV looked to be a sure thing are now telling me that ESPN-HD on DirecTV may not be a sure thing at all.

It appears that DirecTV is now running a graphic on ABC Family informing viewers that ABC Family's contract with DirecTV expires on March 31st and may not be available on April 1st.

As you may know ABC Family and ESPN are all owned by Disney, what I read from the above is that if DirecTV does not renew ABC Family they also do not get ESPN-HD.

Can ESPN-HD be part of the renegotiation process in order to keep ABC Family on DirecTV? We don't know for sure, everything basically is going between the lawyers and programming reps from both companies.

All's that I can say at this point is this news does not look good for ESPN-HD to be available on DirecTV on its launch date of March 30th.

Keep it tuned here to DBSTalk.COM we will report more news as we know it.

[DCSholtis]

Hey Scott IMHO...Disney is leveraging ABC Family in order to get the ESPN-HD Deal signed...I think your correct...and its true they are running the think at the bottom about possibly being dropped by Directv.

[Cyclone]

I would think that they would more likely leverage the promise ESPN-HD to get ABC Family signed.

[Scott Greczkowski]

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13070

[SamC]

IMHO, DirecTV w/o ESPN-HD on day one with no further c**p is a receipe for writing off the HD market.

DirecTV would have 18 of the 24 hours of what will soon be one of HDNet's 4 channels (with no sports) ; the two premiums; and a PPV channel. Contrast that to Dish, a cable system that isn't mis-managed or BEV.

DirecTV need to get this resolved now.

[jrbdmb]

Originally posted by SamC
IMHO, DirecTV w/o ESPN-HD on day one with no further c**p is a receipe for writing off the HD market.

DirecTV would have 18 of the 24 hours of what will soon be one of HDNet's 4 channels (with no sports) ; the two premiums; and a PPV channel. Contrast that to Dish, a cable system that isn't mis-managed or BEV.

DirecTV need to get this resolved now. This is funny - replace "DirecTV" with "Dish" and you now have a post you see at least a few times a week on the Dish forums. :)

Actually, I'm glad to see that DirecTV will stand up and fight instead of having channel price increases rammed down their throat - must have learned that from Charlie I guess.