DirecTV to boost Latino World Cup coverage
December 16, 2013
DirecTV, the DTH pay-TV broadcaster says it is preparing to show all of the upcoming FIFA World games in HD on 5 dedicated channels over its Latin American markets.
DirecTV’s president of DirecTV Panamericana, Jacopo Bracco, told analysts at DirecTV’s Investor Day in New York that HDTV was increasingly important to Latino subscribers. He said that some of its cable rivals (and he specifically mentioned TV Cable in Ecuador) offered up to 55 channels in high-def, compared to DirecTV’s 20.
Bracco said that DirecTV would be responding with more HD channels, and also tapping into the World Cup football to further win subscribers (up 2.1 million in the past year) and supplying 5 dedicated World Cup channels in HD in order to show all the games. “We’re going to be the only place where you can see the 64 games live and in HD. We’re going to have 5 channels of HD fully dedicated to the event, 24-hour coverage, 800-plus hours of exclusive production just for DirecTV subscribers, interactive multi-cameras, and statistics. It’s going to be a real event.”
Bracco said DirecTV was targeting to reach and pass 8 million Latino subscribers by the end of 2016. And I’m very confident we’re going to make or exceed that goal. So the future is bright for PanAmericana. I’m very confident. I’m very pleased.”