Showtime teams with Broadband Libraries

Network to offer online gaming

By JOHN DEMPSEY

Showtime Networks has joined with the videogame publisher Broadband Libraries to create an online gaming destination for cable subscribers and telephone customers who want to play "Grand Theft Auto" on their laptops.

Matt Blank, chairman and CEO of Showtime Networks, said, "Gaming may not seem like a natural fit for us, but Showtime's entire business life is taken up with viewer transactions and subscriptions. And we're one of the most aggressive promoters to local markets."

Dubbed On Broadband, the gaming service will help cable systems strengthen their Web sites by offering people with high-speed access the ability to order some games for free and other for purchase. In what Blank regards as a buyer-friendly clause, the cable operator will be able to slap its own label on the service; the logos of Showtime and Broadband will be nowhere in sight.

Showtime will also solicit telephone companies to offer the gaming service over their DSL lines.

Cable ops and phone companies will pay a monthly license fee to access the gaming service from Showtime. Some of those fees could be offset by revenue sharing in which the cable op and telco would get a piece of the revenue from every game the customer either buys through a monthly subscription or purchases from a menu of 500 games that'll be available from an online game store.

Blank engineered the deal with Peter von Schlossberg, the exec in charge for Broadband Libraries.