MTV Networks, NBCU in Sports Partnership

NEW YORK, May 28: MTV
Networks Music Group and NBC Sports have entered into a strategic partnership
to expand the AST (Action Sports Tour), a global, youth-focused, multimedia,
action-sports business.

The ASP franchise includes
the AST Dew Tour, the AST Winter Dew Tour and the amateur Free Flow Tour.
Action Sports Tour, LLC, the company that will operate the business, will be
co-owned by MTV Networks and NBC Sports.

The venture will see MTV
and MTV2 providing lifestyle programming, targeted cross-promotion, multiplatform
content and distribution and consumer products licensing and merchandising to
the joint venture. NBC Sports will continue to produce competition coverage of
the AST tours and provide live network broadcasts and on-air promotion around
AST competitions. The addition of MTV and MTV2 nearly doubles AST’s annual
television broadcast output.

Wade
Martin, AST’s president and general manager, will continue in his current role
and will oversee tour sales, marketing, business development and operations for
the MTVN/NBCU joint venture, reporting to its board of directors. Jeff Yapp,
executive VP of program enterprises for MTV Networks Music & Logo Group,
and Kevin Monaghan, the senior VP of business development at NBC Sports and
Olympics, will be the lead directors from each company.

Announcing
the joint venture, Van Toffler, the president of MTV Networks Music and Logo
Group, noted, "MTV pioneered the marriage of music, sports and lifestyle
back in the early 1990's. Today, by joining forces with NBC Sports on the AST,
we'll be giving our audience the chance to experience a next generation sports
tour that covers it all."

Dick Ebersol, the chairman
of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics, added: "When we created the Action
Sports Tour, we always hoped that one day MTV would be a strategic partner. The
Tour will see immediate benefits from this alliance and is now uniquely
positioned for long-term growth."

NBC
Sports created and launched the Dew Tour in 2005. It was the first,
season-long, nationally televised, competitive tour for the action sports of
skateboarding, BMX and freestyle motocross with five events. The AST umbrella brand for the various
tours and businesses was introduced in 2007. In April 2008, AST held its first
event outside of the U.S. with the AST China Invitational in Beijing. In
December 2008, the three-stop Winter Dew Tour (snowboarding and free style
skiing disciplines) for men and women will launch. The AST's Free Flow Tour
started in 2005 and creates local skate park competition opportunities for top
amateur skaters and BMX riders to compete against the AST's pro athletes.

The
2007 AST Dew Tour was the most watched action sports property globally,
including an estimated 41 million U.S. viewers consuming the combined 33 hours
of AST programming on NBC Sports and the USA Network. The summer Dew Tour also
has U.S. distribution partnerships with Universal HD, Fox's Fuel, Rush HD and
Hulu.com. In addition, the summer Dew Tour is distributed in over 100 countries
and available in 23 different languages on six continents in 280 million homes
worldwide on Eurosport, Eurosport2, Fox Sports International, Extreme Channel,
China's CCTV and Fox/Fuel Australia, as well as on a variety of new-media
platforms. In 2007, NBC began live, international broadcasting of AST events
through multi-year agreements with Eurosport2 and Fox/Fuel Australia.

—By Mansha Daswani