Directtv Hazardous To Thumbs

I thought I’d died and gone to heaven until my thumb fell off.

Too many channels, too many games, too many decisions.

“I admit, it’s overwhelming at first,” said Jim Ramo, executive vice president of DirecTV, which delivers up to 175 channels on those dinner-plate-size digital satellite dishes.

Here’s how overwhelming.

In one year, you can buy 200 NFL games for $139, 700 NBA games for $149, 500 NHL games for $119, 425 college basketball games for $79, 22 regional sports networks from across the country for $79.95, and a full slate of college football games for $9.95 per day.

That’s $600 a year, give or take a few bucks, for 2,000 games. Next year, add 1,000 major league baseball games for another $100 or so, and you’ll need two remotes with turbo-charged channel changers to keep up.

We’ll all walk around like Mike Tyson - with big bandages on our thumbs.

“The first Sunday when you get all those football games, you don’t know how to watch them,” Ramo said. “I’ve found this with the NBA, too. It’s a whole new way of watching TV.

“First, your thumb goes so crazy, you don’t even watch a game. It’s like reading a book randomly, from the index rather than the table of contents. But after a little experience, you learn how to settle in and flick around during commercials.”

And remember, most viewers don’t buy every package.

“If you did, you’d never talk to your wife, your family would split up, and you’d spend the rest of your life in your pajamas,” Ramo said.

DirecTV has 1 million dishes out there and expects to add another 100,000 before Christmas with a promotion giving away the final five weeks of the NFL season.

Although DirecTV delivers a wide range of programming, covering channels 100-529, it was its contract with the NFL that put it over the top.

“The NFL has been a boon for us. It’s the biggest seller that we have,” Ramo said.

The first sports deal DirecTV made was to carry ESPN and ESPN2, including out-of-market rights to the games on those two networks.

“Then, we went to the NFL to make a deal, and that made us the only small dish provider with rights to deliver out-of-market NFL games. Then, finally, we did the deal with the NBA and NHL, and that gave us a whole package,” Ramo said.

The DirecTV satellite dish and converter box cost $600. It’s another $250 or so for installation, although you Toolman Tims out there can probably do it yourself. Different packages of channels range up to $29.95. Then you can start buying sports packages and other add-ons.

And when you stop long enough to actually watch something, you’re going to see the most clear, sharpest picture you’ve ever seen. It’s digital, and there are no more ghosts, no more wavy lines, no more grainy pictures. You’ll never again see more than one football - at least before halftime.

Out takes

Tyson-McNeeley. It might have been a boxing mismatch, but it was perfect for pay-per-view. According to Gould Media Services’ TV SportsFile, the Tyson-McNeely fight Aug. 16 accounted for 26 percent of the total pay-per-view event revenue.

Presented by Showtime Entertainment Television, the PPV arm of Showtime, the fight grossed $63 million from U.S. pay-per-view distribution, representing 48 percent of all 1995 PPV boxing revenue.

Showtime estimates that if Tyson fights three times on pay-per-view in 1996, those fights will create a 59 percent increase in PPV event revenue over 1995.

Showtime said 39 percent were first-time PPV buyers.