ESPN Reports Launch of Sports-Magazine Show
Total Sports Network Holds Multiplatform Upfront
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 5/15/2007 11:39:00 AM
New York -- While broadcast brethren ABC was announcing that it was adding 11 new shows to its lineup for the 2007-08 season, ESPN played through some upfront news of its own.
The network will jump into the sports-magazine genre with ESPN Reports (working title), scheduled to debut Oct. 16. ESPN correspondents Tom Farrey, Rachel Nichols, Lisa Salters, Jeremy Schaap and Michael Smith will serve as the reporters for what these journalists told the assembled media buyers would be a fast-paced show with a lot of different elements. In keeping with ESPN’s multiplatform zeitgeist, content will be distributed across several ESPN platforms.
Extending ESPN’s increased focus on fantasy sports, as evidenced by segments on Sunday NFL Countdown, Baseball Tonight and a Sunday-morning show on ESPN Radio and ESPNEWS, the latter will play home to a dedicated weekly one-hour show on Sundays debuting in August.
The company said it would add a new annual event from the ESPN X Games group with the Moto X World Championships, in which riders will compete in a variety of disciplines, including freestyle, super moto, best trick and step up. The first competition will take place next April at a site to be announced.
Speaking of action sports, ESPN will help viewers to ring in the new year with a number of athletes trying to break world records in various disciplines on a special slated for Dec. 31, according to executive vice president of content John Skipper.
ESPN officials also announced that limited series The Bronx Is Burning, presented by MasterCard, will air on eight consecutive Tuesdays in July and August at 10 p.m.
The company plans to transport the SportsCenter Minute from ESPN.com to ESPN on ABC programming. Beginning in September, the update will appear hourly on sports programming on the alphabet network.
In the digital realm, advertisers now have the opportunity to attach their messages to ESPN video podcasts via Apple’s iTunes format.
And beginning Wednesday, subscribers to Verizon Wireless’s V CAST Mobile TV application will receive an MVP package of information from ESPN. The MVP offering -- including scores, updates, gamecasts and personalized player and team alerts -- is essentially a reincarnation of the Mobile ESPN mobile virtual network operator run by Disney that used Sprint Nextel’s wireless service before the plug was pulled last December, due to a lack of customer interest.
Verizon Wireless said one-third of its 60 million-customer base has V CAST-enabled phones.
Finally, ESPN will celebrate the 300th iteration of its This Is SportsCenter promo campaign with a series of specials premiering Tuesdays in September. The programs will look back to the early days of the campaign, which is now in its 14th year, and culminate with the screening of the milestone spot. This Is SportsCenter 300 will also include radio, magazine and online components.
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