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ECU News, Notes and Commentary
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The
Bradsher Beat
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
By Bethany Bradsher |
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CSTV in two-minute drill on
'Total Access'
Internet package opens new
possibilities for Pirate fans
©2005 Bonesville.net
There was
a time when a fan stayed in touch with his team only through radio
broadcasts, newspaper stories and the occasional televised game on a major
network. The limitations of those outlets meant that fans of many college
programs had to be satisfied with a trickle of information.
As the
Internet comes into its own, that trickle has turned into something like a
drink of water from a fire hose. College Sports Television and East Carolina
hope that fans will pony up $5 a month for, to use their own term, “total
access.”
The ECU
athletic department announced last week that
ECUPirates Total Access is available
for purchase for $4.95 a month or an annual payment of $44.95. If all goes
as planned, a revamped website will appear at ecupirates.com late this week
complete with a variety of audio and video offerings.
“The
website appetite is insatiable,” said Jayne Wallace, the vice president of
corporate communications for CSTV. “It’s certainly more accessible to fans
than the cable network is, even though we're trying to rectify that.”
Subscribers to Total Access will be able to listen to live broadcasts of
games, weekly coach’s shows, press conferences and other events in addition
to video highlights. And CSTV, which is responsible for creating the Total
Access package with the information it receives from the university, will
reproduce all of the sound and pictures via an enhanced broadcast-quality
platform.
Dan Rains
lives in Greenville and can listen to the games on local radio stations, but
he plans to subscribe to Total Access for the extra information it promises
and the highlights from other Pirate sports, he said.
“I’ll just
be able to keep up with the Pirates,” Rains said. “It will be nice to be
able to have it whenever you want it.”
A release
on the ECU website responds to frequently asked questions about the service,
including concerns about paying for Internet streaming services that have
been free in the past.
“The
primary reason for the decision is the need to deliver more programming at a
better quality,” said the release, which reported that 200 other
universities also require subscriptions for their Internet audio and video.
“Streaming broadcasts and hosting multi-media are expensive endeavors on the
scale required to support the many ECU alums and fans desiring access to
this content.”
With
Thursday as the target startup date for Total Access, Malcolm Gray of the
ECU sports information department plans to work long hours gathering and
sending the relevant information to CSTV. Early September is the target
date, but CSTV has not given the university any ironclad guarantees.
Sometime
soon, Pirate fans will log onto the athletics website and notice that it has
a new look and a place to log onto to Total Access. But the exact timetable
for that change is dependent on CSTV’s speed in putting the new web platform
together, Gray said.
“With any
luck, and I’m knocking on wood as I’m saying this, our target date is Sept.
1,” Gray said.
If the
service is not operational by kickoff time on Saturday, fans outside of the
range of the Pirate Sports Radio Network could conceivably be out of luck.
Even though it is a simple flip of a virtual switch for Bonesville.net and
its radio station partner, WNCT-AM Talk 1070, to offer streaming of the game
as they have in the past, CSTV and ECU control the Internet broadcast rights
and would have to grant Bonesville permission before the site could relay
the game feed over the Web, Bonesville owner Danny Whitford said.
Whitford,
Bonesville.net's editor,
authored a recent column endorsing the
Total Access concept, citing the cutting-edge multimedia features it will
offer and the potential for subscriptions to provide a new source of revenue
for ECU athletics.
In the
television realm, CSTV is in the final stages of negotiations with Dish
Network to include the fledgling network on the satellite system, Jayne
Wallace of CSTV said.
Fans
without a satellite dish in the Greenville area will still have the chance
to watch at least four games this season. ECU director of electronic media
Jeff Charles said that the university, CSTV and WITN-TV 7 have reached an
agreement that will allow WITN to broadcast road games against West
Virginia, SMU and Marshall and the Pirates' final regular season contest, a
Nov. 26 home game against UAB.
Discipline, Part II
A week
after the suspension of
starting free safety Jamar Flournoy was made public, Skip Holtz
announced that another player has been banned from competition this season
because of a team rules violation.
Mike
Williams, a freshman offensive lineman from Orlando, FL, was suspended due
to an internal coaching decision, Holtz said, and his suspension is already
underway.
“We’re
trying to build a program,” Holtz said at his media luncheon on Monday.
“Allowing student-athletes to do things that don’t represent this university
and not take any action is going to defeat what we’re trying to do. That’s
why I’ve taken some pretty strong stances.”
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Bethany Bradsher.
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02/23/2007 01:11:37 AM |
