extremespts.jpg LOS ANGELES, CA.--- Innovation has been the hallmark of the Bennett family over the past 50 years of broadcasting. First, with patriarch Bob Bennett launching the historic WCVB-TV in Boston that was called "America's finest television station by The New York Times" in 1981. Followed by his son Casey pioneering television productions of extreme sports in the late 1980's and High Definition TV series in the late 1990's. Beginning in 1971, WCVB-TV produced and broadcast 60 hours a week of original series and specials, including TV's first medical and law shows, with Dr. Tim Johnson and Harvard lawyer Arthur Miller; an ABC movie-of-the-week entitled "Summer Solstice" starring Henry Fonda and Myrna Loy; a half-hour situation comedy, "The Baxters", co-produced with Norman Lear; and another sitcom "Park Street Under" that allegedly was the precursor to the network hit "Cheers". Bob Bennett continued his visionary broadcasting career at Metromedia Broadcasting Inc. from 1981 through 1985 where his programming initiatives led to the creation of a nationwide Metromedia Network, believed by some in the industry to have been the forerunner of the Fourth Network instituted by 20th Century Fox after it bought Metromedia in 1985. Casey Bennett, whose early career included stints as a cameraman with ABC Sports and CNN, went on to make his own marks in the TV business. His company, Bennett Productions, Inc., was launched in Los Alamitos, California, in the early 1980s. In 1988, he began shooting extreme sports athletes around the world in preparation for what proved to be the first weekly series on the subject, "The Extremists", syndicated worldwide in 1990-91. The term "extreme sports" was popularized in large part through the exposure given these athletes, such as Tony Hawk and Laird Hamilton, on the 88-episode, half-hour series. "The Extremists" still runs on TV networks and stations around the world, and its successor, "The Extremists in High Definition", will be showcased by Bennett Productions' sister company, Bennett Media Worldwide, at MIPCOM '05. (Bennett Media Worldwide is located at stand #17.24, tel. # 8108.) All of the programs that Bennett Media Worldwide is introducing at MIPCOM - and the following week at Sportel in Monaco - are produced in High Definition TV. BMW is offering its clients the opportunity to acquire standard format rights for utilization now and, simultaneously and without charge, to hold an option to purchase the HDTV rights when they can be used in the near future. Joining the Bennetts'in their latest innovation, Bennett Media Worldwide, is Bob Bennett's partner since those early days at WCVB-TV in Boston, Paul Rich, president/CEO of BMW. "Bennett Productions' emergence as one of the world's most experienced HDTV producers combined with its burgeoning slate of music, sports, lifestyle, and other reality-based programs, has placed it at the forefront of HDTV content providers. Now, with its own distribution company (Bennett Media Worldwide), it is positioned to strengthen that position."