DISTEFORA Mobile and British Eurosport realise MobileVote at the Australian Open

Hamburg, 29 January 2002 +++ DISTEFORA Mobile AG has been commissioned by British Eurosport to arrange the entire technical infrastructure for the mobile voting at this years Australian Open (14-27 January 2002) in Melbourne.

British Eurosport will now provide a dedicated interactive offering, by using DISTEFORA Mobiles Mobile Vote, allowing viewers to text in competition answers, coverage requests and opinions.
Every match was given a keyword. The viewer decided on his or her favourite match and did send an SMS with the respective keyword using a short-dial number. The match with the most SMS votes was then broadcasted as 'Play of the day in Eurosports evening programme.
The interactive offerings continued with 'Vote of the day which allowed fans to vote on questions posed by a commentator during the live broadcasts each morning (e.g., Vote for the best hair cut, Vote for the best dressed).
This service from DISTEFORA Mobile is one of the first in which a Premium-Rate SMS is employed and is reserved for viewers of the Australian Open in Great Britain. The price for a Premium-Rate SMS is 20 pence. DISTEFORA Mobile and Eurosport are opening up considerable potential revenues with this application, at the same time producing a strong bond with the viewers.

The new SMS capabilities will be available to viewers tuning in to British Eurosports 24-hour, dedicated coverage of the Winter Olympics from February 8th. Fans will be able to put forward their views and take part in a special interactive quiz.

Arjan Hoekstra, Deputy Managing Director of British Eurosport said;
We are pleased to collaborate with DISTEFORA and offer our viewers the opportunity to interact with British Eurosport coverage. We are committed to continually looking for new ways to enhance the channel and interactivity is something we plan to apply to all our services across Europe."

About DISTEFORA Mobile:

DISTEFORA Mobile develops and runs mobile applications for customers from the area of entertainment such as RTL, MTV, SkyRadio, and Universal as well as for corporate clients from mobile direct- and dialogue marketing.

In the Business-to-Consumer field, mobile content (e.g. ring tones, company logos), entertainment and information offers and prize games are featured across the entire media spectrum.

The company has secured partnerships and revenue share agreements with mobile operators in the whole of Europe and runs its own virtual SMS centre with connections to the mobile network.

DISTEFORA Mobile has branch offices in eight locations in seven countries (Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, England, Spain and Italy).

About British Eurosport:

British Eurosport is the most widely available sports channel in the UK broadcasting world class sport with a British perspective via Sky Digital, NTL, Telewest, ITV Digital, Eurobell and Kingston Communications to over 9m UK homes. British Eurosport is 100% owned by TF1. Premium TV invests in British Eurosport by way of a contractual joint venture. Premium TV is backed by NTL.
Eurosportnews launched on 3rd September 2001 in the UK and is available in over 6 million homes providing 24-hour up to the minutes sports news.

Further information:

Berit Crawford
DISTEFORA Holding (Deutschland) GmbH
Bahrenfelder Chaussee 49E
D-22761 Hamburg
Phone: +49 40 8 55 03-152
Fax: +49 40 8 55 03-210
Mob : +49 173 218 42 28
Email: berit.crawford@distefora.com
Web: www.distefora.com

Or

Michelle Guy/Tristan Lewinsohn
British Eurosport Press Office             
+44 207 468 7777 or +44 7799 434 036            
mguy@eurosport.co.uk or tlewinsohn@eurosport.co.uk