Fans just happy to see games

Mountain West Conference football games are now viewed coast to coast for the first time. And while fans from Virginia to Florida and Texas to Iowa are grateful for the access, feedback and reaction range from ecstatic for the peek-and-see to disappointment over production.

Reaction is basically gratitude, but there's a mounting desire by viewers for high-definition broadcasts.

Right now, the fact BYU and Utah are nationally ranked football programs is bringing the conference more national exposure on wire service roundups and a place on ESPN's SportsCenter. It's a spotlight The mtn. channel cannot do on its own.

"It's fantastic," said Kim Carver, vice president and general manager of The mtn., now available on DirecTV nationally. "Fans for the most part are very excited, and we've had a great response from all over the U.S."

Carver, who is a football fan, recognizes the craving for HD broadcasts and is working on it.

"It's not going to happen in 2008," she said.

When the network started up, it acquired equipment and is in the process of upgrading.

"It's a time-consuming and expensive process, but we're working on it," she said.

According to Nielsen Media Research ratings provided by The mtn., the BYU-Northern Iowa game was seen by an average of 35,000 households in the Salt Lake television market. That's 4 percent of the 874,650 TV-equipped households in the market, which includes all of Utah and parts of Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada. And an average of 11 percent of the homes where someone was watching TV during the telecast were watching the Cougars beat the Panthers.

At its peak, 44,000 households tuned in to the game; the lowest number was 24,000 households.

Here's a sampling of reaction from throughout the country, folks who added DirecTV for league coverage. From Roby Hammond, human resource project manager for San Antonio, Texas:

"I caved in and subscribed to DirecTV just to get The mtn. We had a huge party on Saturday to watch the BYU game. ... It was awesome to be able to watch games again. The picture quality was pretty sad. ... The main problem was the camera, unbelievably fuzzy, and I had a brand new 1080 HDTV ... sideline cameras were OK. ... Announcers were decent but still made their share of dumb comments but that happens on every channel, even the hallowed ESPN. Glad I switched, cost is favorable to cable."

From Mike Lowder in Alabama:

"It's so cool to be able to watch all the games now on The mtn. on DirecTV. I'm really glad they were finally able to strike a deal to make this happen. ... One thing is left to do and that is The mtn. to broadcast in HD. It's not good that the highlights of the games on The mtn. shown on other networks are in SD and all the other highlights of games are in HD. I hope they switch to HD soon, but I'm not holding my breath."

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