Starting November 27, and for $49.95/month, the NFL and
DirectTV will make the league's "Sunday Ticket" package available
to fans with 18-inch satellite dishes, according to Leonard
Shapiro in the WASHINGTON POST. "Big dish owners have had it all
year," and -- so far -- approximately 200,000 big dish owners are
subscribers to "Sunday Ticket." Shapiro also reports that
DirecTV, a division of GM Hughes Electronics, currently has
"150,000 subscribers with the little dish, and the company is
selling between 2,000 and 3,000 RCA-made dishes a day"
(WASHINGTON POST, 11/19).
IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK: "When it comes to the subject of
pay-per-view television," most NFL officials "shake their heads
no, a thousand times no," according to Shapiro, who believes that
"if the 'NFL Sunday Ticket' looks like pay-per-view, sounds like
pay-per-view, and definitely costs like pay-per-view (okay,
bargain basement pay-per-view), it must be -- additive." Ron
Bernard, president of NFL Enterprises: "Anything we do in this
area is an additive service. In no way will we take anything
away from the viewer on free television. It's additive. In no
way will we do pay-per-view" (WASHINGTON POST, 11/19).
