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Preethi J.

With IPTV's flexibility and economic model, broadcasters, for the first time, can stream many events live straight to the viewer.

Bangalore , Nov. 14

ESPN-Star Sports, a joint venture between the two television biggies, is now betting on new media such as mobiles and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) to reach out to sports fans.

"New technologies such as IPTV will offer new hope for live sports broadcast," said Mr Sricharan Iyengar, Business Head - New Media, ESPN Software India.

Content of sports shows will improve and change to suit the new age TV viewer with the emergence of IPTV. It will also open up a whole world to sports fans, as those who are interested in specific games which are not so popular, will be able to order that match, said Mr Iyengar. Giving Wimbledon as an example, he said that there are eight matches happening simultaneously, but the channel can only show four due to time constraints. With IPTV's flexibility and economic model, broadcasters, for the first time, can stream all events live straight to the viewer.

Internet Protocol is a means for data transfer over a network, and mainly sends packets of data (could be video, text, audio) over dial-up or direct broadband lines. With IPTV, you can send TV signals over such a network. It will allow you to watch your favourite programme when it is convenient for you, rather than when it is broadcast.

Currently, a single telecast of a cricket match blocks eight hours of precious primetime viewing. Now they will be able to keep pace with sports events across the globe and offer higher quality content to subscribers on a day-to-day basis, he said.

MOBILE

The mobile will probably be used more as an alert mechanism, to inform the viewer about matches on different channels, rather than video streaming in India. Calling it a fairly big tech bottleneck, Mr Iyengar said India's mobile networks are lagging behind the other countries, forcing the channel to stay one step behind in their offerings. "We are being forced to create a mobile ESPN service that is not primarily video, but instead SMS or voice-based. As a TV channel, we believe that video is the medium we have to begin — sports coverage is best in video," he said. The actual mobile experience will be much easier to offer when 3G arrives.

The entity has changed its production style to suit mobile screens. While the TV screen can show long shots, a mobile screen will require close ups and big font sizes, and cannot show any scrolling scripts, he said. Also, the channel will have to choose only those camera points where there is clear view of the ball when it is being relayed over a mobile network.

The broadcaster realises India's huge market potential, with its 100 million plus subscribers & 40 million landlines, and hopes to reach out to at least 20 per cent of them.

More Stories on : Convergence | Sports | Telecommunications

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