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Cuban says Web as entertainment is over

Web Posted: 03/26/2008 10:45 PM CDT

William Pack
Express-News Business Writer

Dallas Mavericks owner and high-definition television network co-founder Mark Cuban was at his outspoken best Wednesday, telling a gathering of cable operators and programmers that the Internet was dying as an entertainment medium.

"You guys have the future right here, and you just don't know it," Cuban said at the Hyatt Regency San Antonio hotel during a conference of the Texas branch of the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing.

"The Internet is dead. It's had its time; say goodbye," said Cuban, who helped launched HDNet in 2001 and remains its chairman.

He bolstered his claim by saying the Internet and popular sites such as YouTube can't provide high-definition programming like cable and can't offer the interactivity that cable programmers can.

High-definition television screens are large enough to give viewers more options that will allow them to use the television like a personal computer desktop, the maverick billionaire said during a panel discussion on the future of high-definition programming.

Executives from Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications outlined the steps they have taken to expand their high-definition programming. Confusion abounds over how high-definition features can be used, but that has not kept consumers from demanding the service at an explosive rate, officials said.

"Our customers have an insatiable appetite for high definition, and we're working to provide more choice and value to our customers," said Cathy Fogler, Charter's general manager for video.

Cuban said HD programming will become the norm in the next three years because the public is not "technology avoidant any more."

"We get excited about it," he said.

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