Cuban-backed Coloradan rolls out high-definition cable.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: High Tech ColoradoBiz

MARK CUBAN, THE COLORFUL INTERNET BILLIONAIRE WHO OWNS THE Dallas Mavericks, is clearly a business big shot. What is it like to co-found a high-definition cable network with him?

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Just ask Phil Garvin, the head of Colorado Studios, who started HDNet with Cuban four years ago. "One of the cool things of working with Mark Cuban: There's never a week, maybe not even a day, where there isn't some new idea," said Garvin.

Garvin has another business, the Mobile Group, which provides television trucks to sporting events--including Mavericks games--which led to his introduction to Cuban in July 2000.

Cuban wanted to broadcast Mavericks games in high-definition, but the idea quickly snowballed. Within a few weeks, the duo co-founded the planet's first high-definition cable network. Cuban staked the startup with capital, and he remains its majority owner.

Today, HDNet and its younger-sister network, HDNet Movies, "are the only true networks based in Colorado," Garvin continued. "There are other channels based here, like Starz! and Encore, but they're not producing anything in Colorado. In terms of a network that hires employees to produce programming, this is it. It's over $100 million invested in a network, right here in Colorado."

About three years after its 2001 launch, HDNet is on track to close the year with 80 employees, twice that of year-end 2002. Colorado Studios HQ, an old hangar at the former Stapleton Airport in Denver, houses the guts of HDNet and HDNet Movies, encompassing everything from original productions to uplink operations.

One-third of HDNet's programming is original sports, including broadcasts of NASCAR, NHL and Major League Soccer events. Other programming runs the gamut from licensed content to concerts to original shows produced out of Denver.

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