U S West buys stake in content

With its 40-city rollout of digital subscriber line service just a few months away, U S West !nterprise made its first major move into the on-line content area, purchasing a minority stake in Intertainer, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based content provider.

Additionally, U S West officials said the carrier will conduct a trial of the company's Intertainment-on-Demand service with a limited number of MegaBit DSL subscribers.

Intertainer, which also has an equity investment from Comcast Communications, bills itself as the world's first interactive on-demand broadband service, delivering video-based entertainment and shopping to televisions or PCs.

The company has signed several deals with broadcast companies and studios, including PBS, Universal, Time Warner and Fox, which will provide content. The company also is working with record companies on electronic commerce possibilities.

"They're lining up major suppliers of content like movies and rock videos, and we're going to aggregate all this content into the service," said a spokeswoman for Intertainer. "It's going to be a really broad mix of American pop culture plus e-commerce capabilities, but that's a little further down the road,"

In addition to the U S West trial, Comcast has agreed to test the service over its cable modem system in Philadelphia.

Financial details of the U S West transaction were not disclosed.