This past Sunday marked ESPN's 35th anniversary, but the net "isn't airing any big television specials or series to commemorate the occasion," according to Kevin Czerwinski of MULTICHANNEL NEWS. ESPN President John Skipper: "I’m sure we’ll have some sort of (internal) town hall thing and people will talk about it. ... There won’t be any program initiative. Our sense is that it matters to us internally. It’s more important as a business story, but we’re more excited about the start of football season." Skipper: “I don’t see us as being 35 (years old). We refuse to grow up and mature. We want to keep innovating and taking the risks." He added, "We can’t fight saturation but we’re producing more content than ever. We’re living in a world with more content than ever. ... Watch ESPN is going to be increasingly important. Mobile devices are rapidly overtaking desktop computers, and we have to be there. I could suggest that the 35-year era has been the pay television era. Going forward, pay television is still critical but it’s a more complicated landscape, and we have to make sure that we are playing in those complicated places" (MULTICHANNEL NEWS, 9/8 issue).
RASMUSSEN REFLECTS: ESPN Founder Bill Rasmussen said of the net's new DC-2 studio and new "SportsCenter" set, "If I understand it, half of the studio is bigger than our entire first building." He said of whether he still has pride in ESPN and what it has become, "How could you not be proud of it? It's like watching your kids grow up to be doctors and dentists and university presidents or something." He added of whether he likes the fact that while there have been other presidents, there can be only one founder, "That's kind of locked in. I was in Dallas recently and they were trying to decide how to identify me: founder, first president, CEO? I said, 'How about settling for founder?' That kind of says it all" (NEWSDAY.com, 9/8).
