Flo TV, NBCU Sign Sports Deal

The Preakness StakesBranching out to cover many more big live sports programs, mobile TV service Qualcomm's Flo TV has made a deal with NBC Universal for a number of major events.

Sports events will include The Preakness Stakes, the French Open, the Stanley Cup Final, the U.S. Open and Wimbledon, which is part of NBC's mobile TV division NBC2GO. It already aired the Kentucky Derby. Flo TV competitor MobiTV has a deal with CBS for the NCAA, in which the March Madness championship basketball event is aired in March.

Flo TV has already aired thousands of hours of college basketball and football, professional basketball and baseball, golf, soccer, boxing, auto racing, and hockey. This includes airing big events, such as the U.S. Open golf championship, for which it said viewership climbed 80% over its usual viewing average.

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Currently, MobiTV has 6 million subscribers. Flo TV does not release subscriber numbers, but says it is available to AT&T subscribers as AT&T Mobile TV and to Verizon Wireless customers as V CAST Mobile TV in 68 markets nationwide.

On the first day of the 2009 men's college basketball programming, the FLO TV service experienced a 48% increase in the average minutes per user from the month before. The FLO TV service also experienced viewership increases of 80% or more during the 2008 U.S. Open golf championship.

Jonathan Barzilay, senior vice president of programming and advertising, FLO TV, credits live sports as a "key driver" of the company's momentum.

NBC Sports executive Perkins Miller added that NBC is "looking for innovative ways to provide" programming to fans on-demand.

FLO also has partnerships with Fox Sports, CBS College Sports and ESPN.

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