CBS Tees Up for HD Golf Broadcasts

With a long-term sponsor in place, CBS recently announced that it will broadcast 13 major PGA tour events, totaling 80 hours, in high definition. The first event will be the MCI Heritage Tournament on April 17-18 from Hilton Head, S.C. These broadcasts are in addition to the HD coverage that the network will do for the 2004 Masters on April 8-11.

CBS will broadcast the PGA tournaments in 1080i and 5.1 surround sound and will downconvert the HD signal for the standard-definition broadcast. The network will be able to present these PGA events in HD through the sponsorship of the Argent Mortgage Company.

Nearly 200 of CBS's owned and affiliated stations now broadcast with a digital signal, covering some 97 percent of the U.S.