“Walt Disney Co.’s sports network ESPN would consider including its WatchESPN application on Apple Inc.’s television device as long as users authenticate they are pay-TV customers, network executive Sean Bratches said,” Andy Fixmer and Alex Sherman report for Bloomberg.
“ESPN subscribers with AppleTV would gain access to the network’s Internet service on their sets. The sports network, which today announced programming for the TV season starting in September, said a deal isn’t imminent,” Fixmer and Sherman report. ““We’re a platform-agnostic content company,” Bratches, the network’s executive vice president of affiliate and advertising sales, said today in an interview. ‘To the extent that in the future there’s an opportunity with Apple to authenticate through the pay-TV food chain as we’re doing with Microsoft, that’s something that we will participate in.'”
Fixmer and Sherman report, “ESPN already provides the app to subscribers with Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox video-game console as part of some pay-TV plans, including those from Verizon Communications Inc.’s FiOS and Comcast Corp.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Free WatchESPN app streams live ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3 and ESPNU to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch – April 7, 2011