I Want My I-TV!!
October 9th, 2006 by murph
Newsday.com reports on the Islanders’ newest website feature, “Islanders TV” a video streaming service of Islanders highlights, interviews, and more. The service is free and available now for season ticket holders. The Islanders plan on selling subscriptions to the service later this year after some more testing. Here is a list of highlights from the Islanders TV webpage:
- Greatest collection of Islanders content on Earth!
- Beyond the Bench with Ted Nolan
- The Garth Snow Show
- Islanders Ice Girls Reality Show
- Off the ice access to Islanders players
- 2 cameras at every Islanders practice
- Exclusive and extended post game interviews
- Live coverage of team press conferences
- Watch up to five videos at a time
- Upload your own videos
- Create Buddy Lists & Share Playlists & Movies
- Debate different topics in public forums
Ice Girls Reality Show??!! Sign me up!! In all seriousness, this is an ambitious service for the Islanders to launch. NHL coverage in general is hard to find in print and on TV, and even harder for Islanders fans in the competitive New York market. The Islanders are trying something different, and have a full-time staff committed to this project.
The volume is staggering, some of it weird, some timely, most only for true believers. Like regular TV in its early days, it has the whiff of improvisation and unpredictability.
Want to see Rick DiPietro get hit in the face with a pie on his 25th birthday? It’s there. Want to see the camera follow an “Ice Girl” (Monica) to her room as she changes for a tryout? It’s there, too (and G-rated).
(Josh) Bernstein heads a four-person staff that travels with the team gathering material that is updated each day. Friday’s offerings included 8 1/2 minutes of locker- room reaction after the defeat in Phoenix (in which team cameras did a lot of listening in on interviews conducted by Newsday’s Greg Logan).
There also was extensive video from both Thursday’s and Friday’s practices, complete with commentary from the team’s radio announcers.
I’m sure the season ticket subscribers who get the service for free will enjoy it. However, it remains to be seen what the Islanders plan to charge for the service and how many paid subscriptions they will get.
Finally, I’ll leave you with the thoughts of PuckUpdate.com, who has obviously thought this over a lot, and come up with the ultimate Islanders TV feature…
I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I’m not pitching I-TV a semi-reality show featuring me and GM/backup goalie Garth Snow in a bowling league with Islanders great Mike Bossy, where we constantly give Snow advice on doing his job. Of course, it’ll be called “Who’s the Bossy?”
