DIGITAL ISLAND MAKE DEAL WITH GRANADA BROADBAND

DIGITAL Island, the leading providers of managed Internet infrastructure, continued to expand their relationships with leading media and entertainment companies through an agreement with Granada Broadband to manage the performance and delivery of the ITV Formula 1 website, www.ITV-F1.co.uk.
Digital Island are enabling Granada Media, UK-based broadcasters, to develop a rich web site for this year's racing program, which got under way on March 4 in Melbourne Australia. Granada's plans include the introduction of video interviews with team owners, chief mechanics and other personalities to be streamed to Formula 1 followers worldwide.
Digital Island are providing an integrated managed infrastructure for Granada through their Extended Host and Footprint Content Delivery Services. Delivering a significant increase in performance for the site's global following, the Digital Island solution combines placing content on edge servers close to where users are located and assured bandwidth capacity through Digital Island's private network. As a result, the company have delivered an up to three-fold increase in the speed of the site for the end user, as well as direct cost savings from more efficient use of network, hosting resources, and manpower.
The improved web site performance is global, whether the user logs on from the UK, US or Australia. Additionally, Digital Island manages peak demand on race days more efficiently.
The site is hosted in Digital Island's London and San Francisco data centres. Content is then pushed out to edge servers in the content delivery network in response to user demand. Digital Island's patented Best Distributor Selection Technology monitors traffic volume on the Internet and directs users to the best-performing server.
The ITV Formula 1 site, which is updated as news happens was developed by Granada to bring significant added value to ITV and fully supports and integrates with the ITV free-to-air coverage of F1 racing. A dynamic multi-media operation, it facilitates merchandising, magazine subscriptions and banner advertising. There are also facilities for revenue-generating click through buttons to the Grand Prix Store, race-themed game downloads, and soon-to-be introduced on-line betting. (CD)