ESPNEWS HD to Launch in March 2008

Breaking News Crawl and HD Sideline Graphics Added to Enhance Viewer Experience

October 15, 2007 -- ESPN will launch its third HD service on March 30, 2008, when ESPNEWS begins telecasting in high definition. The shift to HD will enable ESPNEWS to make the most of the 16 x 9 high-definition television viewing area, offering fans an enhanced viewing experience. ESPNEWS HD will also afford new graphic sponsorship placement opportunities for advertisers.

Article continues below...

ESPN’s innovative new HD Sideline graphic, which will debut on ESPNEWS HD, will wrap around the top, left and bottom of the HD screen. The HD Sideline will offer the display of textual information, headshots, news, and scores, while still delivering a window to accommodate all video highlights in 16x9 HD. It will also offer additional content not available on ESPNEWS SD, which will also contain a redesigned bottom line graphic. Both the high-definition and standard-definition services will have increased capacity to display breaking news and news of the day.

According to Rick Paiva, ESPN's vice president, creative services, "Our HD viewers will have an unprecedented opportunity to view pristine 16x9 HD highlights accompanied by an abundance of real-time information from all areas of the sports world. This new graphic system will also benefit our SD viewers by providing more information without reducing the size of the current video display area."

ESPNEWS HD currently has carriage agreements with DIRECTV, Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

For ESPNEWS, which is available in 62 million homes, the recently completed third quarter delivered a series of records. It was the network’s most-watched quarter ever, an average of 69,000 households, beating the mark set in second quarter this year. This represents an increase of 34% from third quarter last year. In prime time, the increase was 44%, rising from 64,000 to 92,000. In September, ESPNEWS averaged more than 100,000 homes for a month in prime time for the first time – 110,000. Not only did each month deliver the biggest audience for that month for ESPNEWS, but August set the mark as the network’s best month ever, only to see the record broken in September, averaging 83,000 households.

Currently, ESPN HD reaches more than 14 million subscribers and is available to more than 91 million homes and ESPN2 HD reaches more than 9.4 million subscribers and is available to more than 72 million homes.

In 2007, ESPN HD and ESPN2 HD will deliver more than 9,000 hours in high definition including all of ESPN’s NASCAR coverage, NBA telecasts, MLS telecasts, MLB telecasts, college football telecasts, National Hot Rod Association races and coverage of NFL Monday Night Football. 100 percent of ESPN and ESPN2’s Bristol-based studio programming originates in high definition, including SportsCenter, NFL Countdown, NFL Monday Night Countdown, NFL Live, Monday Night Countdown, Baseball Tonight, Mike & Mike in the Morning and First Take. In addition to live sports programming, ESPN HD and ESPN2 HD produce individual programs, movies and series.

Source: ESPN