Ovation Partners with Affiliates to Invite Their Communities to Enjoy an Artful Summer

Comcast and Time Warner Join Ovation in Support of Art and Arts Education Programs in Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles and More

Santa Monica, CA – June 9, 2011 On the heels of its successful sponsorship of Arts Advocacy Day in Washington DC, Ovation is announcing several new sponsorship projects in partnership with their affiliates in Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Gettysburg and Harrisburg, Charleston, New York and Los Angeles.

Comcast Cable is partnering with Ovation on a number of projects in their local markets, including the Piccolo Spoleto Music Festival in Charleston through June 12; the Commonwealth Shakespeare Theater Company in Boston, performing through mid August; Philadelphia Museum of Art’s exhibition “Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle,” on display through July 10; and the Screenwriter’s Competition with the Atlanta Film Festival, running now through November. In May, Ovation and Comcast Cable partnered to sponsor Shen Yun Performing Arts in New Brunswick, NJ. This critically acclaimed international touring company features classical Chinese dance and music and is currently performing in Los Angeles and New York.

Ovation is also partnering with Comcast and the XFINITY Mobile Tour Vehicle in the following markets: Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Arts Festival on June 4, the Gettysburg Festival Brass Picnic on June 18 and the Dauphin County Jazz Festival in Harrisburg, PA in September. Ovation, which is available on XFINITY, will be distributing programming info and give-aways during the events.

Time Warner Cable is co-sponsoring the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers’ regional awards in Los Angeles this June, and will also join Ovation in the sponsorship of the National Gold Key Winner Scholarship, presented in New York in June at the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers’ annual awards presentation.

Ovation is also partnering with Time Warner Cable in Los Angeles to present the winner of the Top Film Award in Ovation’s Short Film Contest, which was launched during this year’s South by Southwest (“SXSW”) Film Festival. The winner will have his or her film presented at a special screening in July 14 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The overall winner, as well as winners in five additional categories, will have their films air on Ovation during “American Revolutionaries: THE HITMAKERS” in July and online at ovationtv.com. Early this year, Time Warner Cable, North Texas partnered with Ovation to sponsor the Gallery Opening for Ovation’s “Best of My Art” winner, Chad Moon, in Dallas. “Best of My Art” presents the best of original works submitted to ovationtv.com during the year for viewers and community members to vote on.

“At Ovation, we want to be more than advocates for the arts. We want to be activists,” said Debra Balamos, VP of Marketing, Ovation. “One of the ways we do this is by partnering with our affiliates to make the arts and arts education more accessible. Almost all of these partnerships involve free days or tickets, scholarship money, airtime or other ‘access’ to make the arts more tangible, and in some cases, make dreams of becoming an artist come true.”

"Ovation's local partnerships also enable our affiliates to be co-branded at popular community events where they can showcase their technology, as well as Ovation programming, to an important niche - tens of thousands of arts enthusiasts, who tend to be more tech savvy, affluent and educated television viewers," said Ellen Schned, SVP Distribution, Ovation.

Over the past four years, Ovation’s support of the arts has been unprecedented for a television network. The company has donated over $10 million to support cultural institutions, individual artists and arts education.