DirecTV announced today that it is now carrying local PBS stations in HD in 14 markets nationwide and will continue to roll out new markets over the next several months.
The launch is the result of an agreement between the satcaster and the Association of Public Television Stations reached a year ago. Under the agreement DirecTV will offer HD programming from local public TV stations in markets where it now provides local HD channels to its customers, which currently stands at 115, representing more than 87 percent of U.S. television households.
DirecTV will also carry two national, standard definition channels of public TV programming and will work with APTS and PBS stations to develop programming for DirecTV’s video on demand service.
Local PBS stations in HD are now available in:
Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City-Dubuque, Iowa
Chicago
Davenport-Iowa Rock Island-Moline, Ill.
Detroit
Houston
Los Angeles
Miami-Ft. Lauderdale
Minneapolis-St. Paul
New York
Norfolk-Newport News, Va.
Phoenix
Portland, Ore.
Rochester, N.Y.
Waco-Temple-Bryan, Texas
“We applaud the cooperative effort put forth by the member stations, APTS and PBS, to ratify the digital carriage agreement that enables DirecTV to begin delivering local public television stations in HD to our customers,” said Derek Chang, executive vice president, Content Strategy and Development, DirecTV. “As the industry’s HD leader and the only satellite TV provider to offer local PBS stations in HD, we believe in delivering content that is worthy of this incredible technology. The addition of PBS’s high-quality programming to our HD lineup continues to raise the bar on the DIRECTV viewing experience.”
