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Do IT this week: Layering
No STO HD? Charge the error to U-verse
By George M. Thomas
Beacon Journal columnist
Published on Friday, Mar 28, 2008
AT&T U-verse customers, how much do you love Big Ten football and, more specifically, Ohio State football? Now how much would you enjoy the prospect of watching Indians baseball in high definition?
You're going to be forced to make a choice — and soon. In the past few months, SportsTime Ohio, the cable home of the Indians, announced that it would be taking the channel into the world of high definition 24/7. That gave anyone who is a fan of the Tribe, who doesn't have a set already, incentive to rush out and buy it.
There's the puzzling problem. If you're a U-verse customer, you're only going to get the standard-definition channel.
''At this time, AT&T U-verse is not offering SportsTime Ohio in HD,'' said Bob Beasley, an AT&T spokesman. ''However, we are always looking for opportunities to expand our already long list of HD. . . . Meanwhile, we will continue to offer STO as part of our standard-definition lineup.''
AT&T declined to explain why it wouldn't add the channel to its service, which has been impressive to date, only offering that it doesn't comment on negotiations or contracts.
Fair enough; when you can't
get information from one party, go to the other. STO's vice president of affiliate relations and distribution, Ed Niemi, offered some insight.
''They told us they're (AT&T) looking to free up some room, but they just don't have any room for STO HD.''
No room? It didn't take Time Warner Cable long to add the channel to its lineup, and it still doesn't have the impressive list of high-def channels that U-verse does.
What STO does understand, however, is the importance of this channel to its customers. It resonates a lot louder than the Big Ten Network or the NFL Network, which U-verse offers in HD.
''I'm surprised that their local management team here doesn't bark up their tree and tell them how important this is,'' Niemi said. ''Maybe they do and I don't know about it.''
How big is the blunder? I have no clue, but this is what anyone who lives here knows about Northeast Ohio and its sports teams. When they are winning, they are supported. When they are losing, such as the Browns for most of the time since they have been back, they are still supported.
This is another given. I bought my first HDTV, a 26-inch, heavier-than-a-Thanksgiving-meal-on-your-belly Samsung a few years back for one simple reason — sports. I only cared about being able to watch football in all its forms courtesy of a pristine picture and nearly flawless surround sound. Those things put me right in the middle of the action.
And even before digital TV becomes the standard next year, people snap up the sets for other sports, such as NASCAR, March Madness and, yes, baseball. Ask your friendly neighborhood Best Buy clerk in the home-theater department when his or her busiest times of the year are.
U-verse is a great service, but on this issue, its management team commits a serious error.
For anyone who is looking to switch his or her video service, it will likely give them pause. For anyone who already had the service installed, I would be shocked if there wasn't some attrition.
It won't be difficult to predict that the customer base here — which I suspect might be small — will morph into a bunch of bleacher-like hecklers directing their ire straight at the object of their disaffection — AT&T.
Its billboards in the area proclaim — ''your world delivered.'' Right now, it can't or won't even deliver the best possible shot of Travis Hafner knocking one out of Progressive Field.
March Madness
It's a good news-bad news situation for the powers that be at CBS when it comes to the NCAA Tournament. The good: The online numbers from March Madness on Demand continue to blast previous numbers.
So far, hits for the service, which allows Internet users to watch games on their computers, are up 129 percent over last year.
Fans have viewed some 3.7 million hours of the tournament on their computer screens. And I am sure no one is watching at work . . . Well, the boss button — that piece of technological nirvana that allows viewers to hide their hoops viewing from their supervisor — has been clicked 2,190,488 times.
On the television screen: Ratings, nationally, are down a whopping 9 percent for CBS.
FSN update
FSN Ohio has one-half of its announcing team for Cleveland Gladiators games: Michael Reghi, the former voice of the Cavaliers.
George M. Thomas can be reached at sportswriterabj@sbcglobal.net. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/sportsblitz/
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AT&T U-verse customers, how much do you love Big Ten football and, more specifically, Ohio State football? Now how much would you enjoy the prospect of watching Indians baseball in high definition?
Get the full article here.
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