Bangkok--17 Jul--124 Communications
SportsCenter, ESPN STAR Sports’ top sports news programme, has gone bigger, better and fresher.
The new format, launched at the start of the FIFA World CupTM last month, has been a hit with viewers across Asia and now carries the latest sports news from around the world at both its time slots at 6.30 pm and 9 pm.
The new format allows for more updates of late breaking news and more time for the day’s headlines, hot topics and expert analysis. “It’s not the news twice. It’s twice the news,” said Sharon Van Zweiten, Executive Producer, News, ESPN STAR Sports.
Sharon added that the 9 pm show now gives the network the ability to enjoy more of the wide reaching access that ESPN STAR Sports has on an international scale.
“A lot of key sports news from Europe, especially football, usually breaks after 5 pm, which is around mid-day over there. While we are able to present them in our first show at 6.30 pm, the later show at 9 pm offers us the time to give our viewers a deeper, expanded coverage of the main news items as they develop,” said Sharon.
“We saw this happen during the World Cup in Germany recently, and we are building on this for the new football season in England and the rest of Europe, which starts next month. Viewers in Asia would certainly prefer to catch as much of the latest sports news before they call it a day, instead of waiting to read about it the next morning.”
Both SportsCenter programmes will continue to have the preferred content of Asian viewers: The latest from the English Premiership, UEFA Champions League, the Spanish Primera Liga, Italian Serie A and other European football leagues, as well as golf, motor sports and key sports news from around the world.
Sharon said that the extra show at 9 pm has also given ESPN STAR Sports more width in presenting sports news. “Although we have always had access to a lot of content, we could not present them in one single programme previously. But with the later show in the evening significantly new now, and no longer a repeat of the earlier one, it has given us more room to offer more and fresher news for our viewers,” she said.
“Another key benefit of having a later SportsCentre show is that we don’t have to cramp our important interviews in their full length at 6.30 pm at the expense of more important news items. We can now run them as soundbites and that will lead our viewers to watch the full version in our second show, when there will also be other news items and in-depth analyses of the day’s main stories,” added Sharon.
SportsCentre will continue to repeat its broadcasts in the Philippines, even with the extra show. The 6.30 pm programme will be repeated at 8 pm, while the 9 pm broadcast will be re-aired at 10 pm.
ESPN STAR Sports is a 50:50 joint venture between two of the world’s leading cable and satellite broadcasters, ESPN Inc. and STAR. We are Asia’s complete sports provider reaching over 138 million households for ESPN and over 64 million households for STAR Sports through our networks - ESPN Asia, ESPN India, ESPN Taiwan, ESPN Philippines, MBC-ESPN (Korea), ESPN Hong Kong, Xing Kong Sports, STAR Sports India, STAR Sports Taiwan, STAR Sports S.E.A and STAR Sports Hong Kong. We bring the world’s premier live sports and leading regional events to viewers 24 hours a day. On the ground, the ESPN STAR Sports Event Management Group manages and promotes premier sporting events around Asia, including the Asian X Games and the San Miguel Asian 9Ball Tour. On-line, espnstar.com, espnstar.com.cn and espnstar.com.tw interact with millions of users providing them with in-depth sports news, results and competitions. This multilingual, online platform which is closely integrated with ESPN and STAR Sports on air networks, has established the sites as the number one on-line sports destination in their respective markets.
For further information, please contact:
Chaiwat Simawattana, 124 Communications Pcl.
Tel: 0-2662-2266 ext. 237
Email: [email protected]