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Pioneer HDNet no longer alone

High-def offerings proliferate since network's '01 debut

Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 5, 2006 at midnight

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When HDNet launched in late 2001 with the broadcast of a Minnesota Twins-Texas Rangers baseball game, the Denver-based network was the only full-time high-definition broadcaster around.

Today all four major networks broadcast their prime-time lineups in high definition, and a host of channels including Discovery, Showtime, ESPN and MTV have introduced HD versions. And HDNet has expanded to create the all-cinema HDNet Movies.

"It's like day and night" from when we started, said Philip Garvin, HDNet's general manager and chief operating officer. "Back then, we were it. HBO was available in high definition, too, but maybe 20 of their movies were in high-def."

HDNet hit TV sets after veteran TV producer Garvin met Mark Cuban, the owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, who made his fortune when he sold Internet streaming site Broadcast.com to Yahoo! for $5 billion in 1999. Sales of HDTV sets were starting to take off, but there was scant programming to showcase the technology.

So Garvin and Cuban decided to start HDNet to fill the gap.

HDNet debuted only on DirecTV satellite service, but it's now available on EchoStar's Dish Network and most major cable networks. The big exception is Comcast, which happens also to be Colorado's and the nation's largest cable operator.

Closely held HDNet doesn't disclose revenues or viewer figures, but Garvin said they've been "growing dramatically" in recent months as more households buy HDTVs and programmers such as Dish bolster their high-definition services.

HDNet has also boldly experimented in its efforts to attract new viewers, including a controversial strategy of releasing the Steven Soderberg film Bubble (produced by Cuban's HDNet Films) in theaters at the same time it showed ad-free on HDNet Movies. Most major movie chains, worried the tactic would undercut their business, refused to carry the film.

HDNet also bolstered its slate of original programming to about 20 hours a week with a smorgasbord of concerts, shuttle launches, Major League Soccer games and its own weekly one-hour news program, HDNet World Report, which has about 55 stringers worldwide filing reports from war zones and tropical paradises alike. The rest of the hours are a mix of programming ranging from travel shows to reruns of Smallville and Joan of Arcadia that were filmed in high definition.

The 170-employee operation is run out of Colorado Studios in Denver, while Cuban remains in Dallas and is "very involved" in all aspects of HDNet, Garvin said with a laugh.