Travelers who want to kill 60 minutes watching 60 Minutes, or even a football game, will get their chance next year on select Continental Airlines flights.

The Houston-based carrier said Tuesday it will offer 36 channels of live programming from satellite provider DirecTV starting in January 2009 in some new planes on domestic routes. It also plans to introduce WiFi service to power

e-mail and instant messaging connectivity, once the technology is tested by LiveTV, the company providing the new onboard services.

First-class customers will get the services free, while economy passengers will have to pay $6.

"Our customers want more in-flight entertainment and communication options," Larry Kellner, Continental's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement.

Currently, competitor JetBlue — which owns LiveTV — and Frontier Airlines are the only domestic carriers that offer fleetwide live satellite TV.

The entertainment will be available on about 225 of Continental's jets within two years of its debut, Continental spokeswoman Julie King said.

The new services will be installed on Continental's fleet of Boeing 737 New Generation aircraft. Those planes include the 737-700, -800, -900 and -900ER aircraft, and the Boeing 757-300.

Passengers will be able to choose from sports, news, weather, children's programming and general entertainment, Continental said.

The initial channel lineup is expected to include CBS, NBC, Fox News, CNN Headline News, ESPN, Animal Planet, The History Channel, Food Network, Nickelodeon, MTV and others. The in-flight entertainment system also will offer a moving map of the flight's progress and other informational and entertainment content that will be stored in the system, according to Continental.

LiveTV spokesman John Hyde said Tuesday that the company became the first to offer in-flight e-mail and messaging on a domestic plane last month.

"Right now, it is available on one aircraft in JetBlue's fleet, and we have been using that aircraft as a 'beta' project," Hyde said. "We're using that aircraft for both marketing and technical testing."

He said he couldn't elaborate on a timeline for completion of the testing.

Customers will be able to use the service with WiFi-enabled smartphones, BlackBerries and laptops. Connections will be available via mail and messaging services offered by Yahoo and BlackBerry, Continental said.

Hyde said he could not disclose terms of the LiveTV-Continental deal.

LiveTV also serves AirTran, ExpressJet, Virgin Blue, WestJet, Blue Wings in Germany and Air One in Italy.