Turner Sports Gears Up For Playoffs

Turner Sports will provide multi-platform coverage of the 2010 National Basketball Association playoffs, including some 50 live playoff telecasts combined on TNT and NBA.com beginning Sunday.
TNT will air approximately 43 live NBA playoffs contests, including exclusive second round and Western Conference Finals coverage, according to Turner officials. NBA TV will carry approximately six live playoff games with pre- and post-game shows, according to the network.
In addition, NBA TV will air Eastern and Western Conference preview shows prior to the start of the playoffs, as well as a 30 to 60-minute, post-game show every night throughout the playoffs. The digital channel will also edit and produce 60-minute versions of every playoff game for re-airs on the network.

Overall, NBA TV will offer up to 305 hours of original programming during the playoffs, said Turner officials.
On the web, NBA.com -- which will surpass a billion video streams by seaon's end -- will offer mosaic live video streaming of three games in the first round of the NBA playoffs, eight games in the second round, and every game from the Western Conference Finals via the TNT OverTime area, according to Turner. NBA.com will also stream all post-game news conferences throughout the playoffs, as well as feature exclusive content and analysis from TNT announcers through TNT OverTime.

NBA.com will also offer a "Look Ahead" after every game featuring TNT and NBA TV talent, and will offer a Twitter landing page that will aggregate the tweets of the league's best analysts, writers and insiders, said the company.

TNT hopes to continue the ratings momentum from its 2009 NBA playoff campaign in which it
averaged 4.7 million total viewers, up 24% from 2008's 3.7 million
viewers.  
"We are excited to bring fans around the world all of the excitement and drama of the NBA playoffs on so many different platforms," said David Levy, president of ad sales, distribution and sports, TBS, Inc in a statement. "Through our extensive and unique NBA portfolio, we've established a great position to capture NBA fans at multiple destinations, allowing them to access video and information anywhere at anytime."

R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.