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To: Dealer who wrote (47703)	2/15/2002 7:19:55 AM
From: Dealer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

RNWK--RealNetworks Revs Up Web Subscription with NASCAR Fri Feb 15,12:48 AM ET SEATTLE (Reuters) - RealNetworks Inc. is pumping up its Web subscription services with more horsepower, as the Internet media and software pioneer clinches a deal to provide exclusive video and audio content from NASCAR (news - web sites) car racing. Seattle-based Real said on Thursday NASCAR will take a place alongside baseball and basketball as part of exclusive sports programming for its RealOne service, which pipes entertainment, sports and news content to subscribers for a monthly fee. Three tiers of content will be available. Regular RealOne subscribers will get some NASCAR video and audio feeds. NASCAR.com will sell a separate product called TrackPass for $4.95 a month or about $30 a year. The top product will be "NASCAR.com on RealOne", which will include even more NASCAR coverage plus RealOne for $11.95 a month. Real struck the multi-year agreement with Turner Sports Interactive, a unit of Internet and media giant AOL Time Warner Inc. that owns NASCAR Internet rights and runs the Web site NASCAR.com. Financial terms were not disclosed. NASCAR.com, which recently relaunched its site, had seen traffic in January double from a year earlier, ranked No. 2 among league-operated sites and was consistently in the top five sports sites of any kind, Turner Sports Interactive Executive Vice President Drew Reifenberger said in an interview. "We always imagined this business would have multiple revenue streams. It's just a natural evolution of the media, like newspaper to radio, radio to television," Reifenberger said. "Along with the relaunch we have a lot going on. We're just firing on all cylinders." Among the features offered will be live audio feeds from the cars of top drivers that will let fans listen in on pit crew conversations in scores of Winston Cup and Busch Series races, Real said. A "RaceVault" feature allows fans to create their own video highlights of favorite drivers and races. A more complete race summary will also debut, as will on-demand video of racing updates, and a twice-weekly on-demand studio show about the sport, the company said. Real has been busy signing up partners for RealOne, which is one of the largest Web subscription services with more than 500,000 customers. "Sports, like so many times before, has built almost every distribution media, including radio. Now you have so much that the Internet will provide in terms of audio, pit audio, telemetry and video of the race itself," Real's Chief Operating Officer Larry Jacobson said in an interview.