The St. Louis Cardinals announced today that they will produce Cardinals Insider, a weekly half-hour news magazine television show and they will manage an online news site on cardinals.com that will provide fans with the ultimate behind-the-scenes view of the St. Louis Cardinals.
"Our commitment is to offer our fans a new level of inside access to the Cardinals from in-house team journalists," said Bill DeWitt III, President of the St. Louis Cardinals. "Cardinals Insider represents a significant investment by the team to provide news, profiles, features, and information that comes directly from the team."
The St. Louis Cardinals Communications Department will produce Cardinals Insider along with the team's Scoreboard Production Department. The half-hour weekly television show premieres Sunday, March 6, on KSDK NewsChannel 5 in St. Louis, Missouri, and on THV11 in Little Rock, Arkansas. FOX Sports Midwest will show Cardinals Insider regionally within its Cardinals coverage areas in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and southwest Indiana starting Sunday, March 6. Cardinals Insider will follow Cardinals Live postgame on Sunday afternoons on FOX Sports Midwest during the regular season and will be repeated during the week. Cardinals Insider has the potential to reach more than three million television homes within the markets served by the three stations.
"There is a tremendous appetite for Cardinals programming," said Jack Donovan, Senior Vice President and General Manager of FOX Sports Midwest. "The content in Cardinals Insider will be a great complement to our extensive lineup of Cardinals games, pregame, postgame and offseason coverage."
"KSDK has enjoyed a long and rich history with the Cardinals," said Marv Danielski, President and General Manager of KSDK. "It's been nearly 70 years, but shortly after we signed on the air in 1947, we televised the first Cardinals game. We look forward to bringing our audience the new Cardinals Insider program for baseball's greatest fans throughout our community."
"We know this is Cardinals Country," said Michael Caplan, President and General Manager of THV11 in Little Rock. "We are thrilled to bring Arkansans a unique, inside and personal look at the St. Louis Cardinals organization each week throughout the entire MLB season."
The half-hour TV show features a mix of news, player profiles, exclusive interviews, in-depth features, and a look back in team history with exclusive content from the team's large archive and extensive museum collection. In addition to offering fans an unprecedented view behind the scenes of the team, the show also places a strong emphasis on fan engagement and leveraging the team's social media to enrich the viewer experience.
"We are excited to be able to use television in concert with our website, social media and Busch Stadium's new HD scoreboard entertainment system to take our fan engagement efforts to a higher level," said Ron Watermon, Vice-President of Communications for the St. Louis Cardinals. "Technology is transforming how we connect with one another, so we are committed to leveraging all of our assets in a thoughtful way to build a deeper relationship with our fans."
The Cardinals production of a half-hour news magazine television show, as well as the team's commitment to consistently producing streaming video content throughout the year for cardinals.com, is a major milestone in the expansion of the team's brand journalism which began more than two decades ago with the publication of Cardinals Magazine.