DirecTV in the News

DirecTV and Barnes & Noble Launch TV Channel

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. - September 19 - (Reuters) - In a boost to the nascent interactive television business, satellite TV service DirecTV Inc. and bookseller Barnes & Noble.com on Wednesday unveiled a plan to sell books through the DirecTV system.

DirecTV will begin offering a new channel, called the Barnes & Noble.com channel, where viewers can access the Barnes & Noble.com Web site via their TV remote controls. Users can then purchase items from the top 100 best-selling books.

The service, which uses software from interactive specialist Wink Communications Inc., is the first of DirecTV's interactive TV, or iTV, services to feature a shopping component, a DirecTV spokesman said.

"Such services provide tremendous value and convenience for our customers and incremental business opportunities for DirecTV and its partners," Brad Beale, senior vice president, DirecTV, said in a statement.

Financial details of the venture were undisclosed.

Barnes & Noble.com is the online bookselling division of retailer Barnes & Noble Inc. DirecTV is a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp. which is controlled by automotive giant General Motors Corp.

On the Barnes & Noble.com channel, shoppers can read book synopses and view jacket covers and other pictures. Like they might on a Web site, customers can choose a title they want, add it to their "shopping cart" and complete a purchase using a

Although talked about for many years, iTV services have begun to roll out only in the past year or so with the growing number of set-top boxes equipped for digital communications.

The Barnes & Noble.com channel joins Instant Weather from The Weather Channel, ESPN Today, and the DirecTV Interactive Center as dedicated interactive TV services featured on the DirecTV system. But the book channel is the first to offer shopping.

The Weather Channel, for instance, offers up-to-date weather information and ESPN Today provides sports and player information and statistics, a DirecTV spokesman said.