Tennis Channel Serves Up 'Court Reports'
Daily Segments Continue Net's Move Toward Increased News Coverage
Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 9/17/2009 4:00:09 PM
Tennis Channel is stepping further into the news court.
After introducing the segments during its coverage of the sport's Grand Slam events, Tennis will make 'Court Report' part of its nightly programming schedule, beginning Sept. 17. Complementing the news and information available on Tennis.com, the one-minute hourly tennis update will now appear regularly on the network each evening and morning throughout the year.
Working from its studios in Santa Monica, Calif., the network, which faces a key date in its distribution dispute with Cablevision next week, will produce four Court Report segments per day Thursday through Monday, which will air just before 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., (ET) respectively. The 10 p.m. segment will run each hour through the night and following morning before concluding at noon. An additional eight Court Report segments -- more evergreen -- will be created each week to run on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, slotted into the same hourly schedule beginning at 7 p.m.
Cari Champion, Arlene Santana and Angela Sun will alternately anchor the segments, which will be followed by a 30-second commercial spot and five-second network ID before the start of the hour's regular programming.
Court Report first appeared on Tennis during the 2009 French Open, and returned during its Wimbledon and U.S. Open coverage.
"This marks a watershed moment for Tennis Channel; a move toward providing regularly updated news to viewers who've come to rely on the network as their source of information on everything that takes place in this sport," said vice president of original programming Laura Hockridge in a statement. "The feedback we received from both viewers and sponsors during the Grand Slam Court Reports this summer was overwhelming. We're excited to launch these segments now and to progress toward establishing a longer-form nightly tennis news desk that can cover not just professional competition, but also high school, college, juniors, seniors, recreational and the many other aspects of the tennis lifestyle."
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