NEW YORK— LodgeNet Entertainment Corp. had positive news for its audience today at the CIBC World Markets Gaming, Lodging and Leisure Conference, being held at The Metropolitan Club here. During the presentation, LodgeNets president/CEO Scott Petersen spoke optimistically about the companys new interactive digital television platform, which was unveiled last year and offers hotel guests greater programming choices, convenience and control. “Our new digital interactive TV system is driving our companys growth,” said Petersen. “The systems digital capabilities are creating strong demand from the hospitality industry. We are giving hotels the ability to entertain their guests with more entertainment choices, from digital movies and music, to video games and other interactive television content. We are also giving guests greater control over when and how they access the content with on-screen controls that give them convenience functions such as pause, rewind and bookmarking. Based on these powerful new features, over the past year we have successfully secured long-term contracts for more than 200,000 rooms in 1,200 properties from many of Americas leading hospitality companies, including many participating at this conference.” In addition to driving room growth, Petersen said the new interactive TV platform is generating greater revenues and enhancing the companys business model. “Not only are we seeing a revenue lift from movies, but we are also generating new revenues from digital music and other interactive TV content enabled by the powerful platform. Overall, per-room revenues are already running approximately 15% higher than our traditional tape-based systems. By year end, we will have around 250,000 rooms installed with this new system, and as it represents an ever greater percentage of our installed base, our revenue growth will substantially exceed unit growth, significantly enhancing our return on invested capital.”
