MediaOne Wires PacBell Park

San Francisco, CA - March 26, 2000

BEFITTING ITS name, Pacific Bell Park is a wired wonder.

The Giants' new home is a state-of-the-art broad casting facility, enabling television and Internet broadcasters to simply plug in their gear and let the broadcasts roll.

That's right, folks. No satellite trucks in the parking lot and no need to bring your own cable if you're covering the game. Broad casters will be able to simply plug into one of the park's internal TV transmission ports and almost immediately start feeding images of Barry Bonds raining baseballs into the drink.

"I feel really good about what we've been able to do," said Dennis Neroda, project director for Pacific Bell, a division of San Antonio-based SBC Communications. "We put in over 200 miles of fiber and copper cabling for all types of communications, including media and corporate events."

Indeed, the place is crawling with cable. Over 100 camera ports, 18 truckloads of fiber and copper transmission cable and multiple on-site studios are part of the package, and that should mean better pictures and more comprehensive coverage for all those Giants fans who can't score a ticket.

The in-house wiring was born of necessity on two fronts: a lack of parking space and a need for revenue.

First, the parking problem. Pac Bell Park rests on a mere 13 acres of land, with little space to spare. Whereas satellite broadcasting trucks used to have plenty of room to roam in the lots surrounding Candlestick, the Giants realized early on that Pac Bell Park would offer no such luxuries.

"We are a downtown park, with very limited on-site parking," said Bob Rose, vice president of communications for the Giants. "We just didn't have the room for satellite trucks, so we had to figure a way to service the media in a different way."

To solve the problem, they turned to one of their longtime partners, ITN, a San Francisco- based independent broadcasting firm that has helped media get their signals in and out of Giants games since 1987.

"What started out as a challenge became an opportunity," said Rose. "We figured, if we can enter into a joint service with ITN, at a nominal fee, and share in the revenue, then they can help us underwrite some of the cabling costs."

And that's how it happened. ITN met with the Giants, as well as the various broadcasters who need access to the park, and came up with a way to wire the park internally so that the four local TV stations -- Channels 2, 4, 5, and 7 -- could link up with little hassle and out-of-town stations seeking access could rent trans mission ports from ITN.

While neither side is releasing financial data on the investment, ITN helped subsidize the installation of Pac Bell transmission fiber throughout the park in exchange for the right to rent it to the out-of-towners and corporate sponsors who may want to host events at the ballpark.

"By thinking of this as one huge project, we were able to take advantage of huge economies of scale," said Linda B. Hannan, president and CEO of ITN. "That's made the whole thing quite cost effective."

For ITN, the advantages are many. The relatively small, local operation is well-positioned as the keeper of the TV tollbooth at Pac Bell Park, poised to collect revenue from both out-of-town TV stations and corporate sponsors.