Approaching its first anniversary of going on the air, College Sports Television has become a major player in collegiate athletics. Currently available in more than 15 million homes nationwide (it is distributed on cable by Adelphia and Insight, and satellite by DirecTV), CSTV has produced over 1,500 hours of original programming, including coverage of 21 different NCAA and NAIA men's and women's sports at 1,200 colleges and universities.

With the announcement in November that it had acquired the Official College Sports Network (OCSN), CSTV has also gained a powerful new position on the Web, operating sites for close to 150 college athletic departments. The acquisition of OCSN, which attracts 7.5 million users in a typical month and is the Internet's largest seller of college-licensed merchandise gives CSTV access to hundreds of new advertisers, including American Express, AT&T, Discover, Ford, Nextel, Sony, and UPS.

"It's been quite a ride," says Chris Bevilacqua, Executive Vice President. "We are now the largest college sports company on the Internet, bigger even than ESPN and Sportsline. We're producing programming for high-definition TV, and we've just signed a deal that will make us available on the cellular platform. We truly are a multimedia company with a leading position in college and amateur sports."

CSTV has signed long-term programming and marketing agreements with more than 30 athletic conferences, and has contracted to broadcast all sports at the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas. It is not neglecting the less publicized side of college athletics, however--upcoming plans include the premiere of "First Person," which will air two-to-five-minute videos by college students reporting on their campus teams. Telling off-beat stories about little-covered teams, CSTV has already received dozens of homemade videos.

It is all part of CSTV's mission to provide the widest possible range of college sports programming. "We know that there's a significant demand out there," says Bevilacqua, who urges fans and administrators to petition their local cable operators to add the channel to their plans. "Our objective has never been to be a niche network. Our goal is to become the premier college sports company, and from my perspective, I think we're doing fabulously."

For guidelines about submitting a video to "First Person," or for more information on CSTV, log onto www.cstv.com.