HIT Entertainment Digital Newsroom

Southwest Airlines Flies Into A Child's Imagination As The Official Airline Of The All-New Barney™ Live! The Let's Go Tour From Hit Entertainment

Tour to Make Stops in More Than 60 Cities Throughout 2006

02/13/2006

New York, NY/Dallas, TX

Southwest Airlines and HIT Entertainment, a worldwide leader in quality preschool entertainment, announced today that Southwest Airlines has signed on as the official airline of the all-new live family adventure, BARNEY LIVE! The Let's Go Tour, starring everyone's favorite purple dinosaur, Barney. Through the sponsorship, HIT Entertainment will feature Southwest Airlines' logo on all printed tour marketing materials, including advertisements, posters and banners. As part of the promotion, Southwest will feature tour information and a schedule of tour stops on www.southwest.com.

"In BARNEY LIVE! The Let's Go Tour - everyone's favorite purple dinosaur takes children on an exciting adventure using their imagination," added Jamie Cygielman, Senior Vice President, Consumer Products, HIT Entertainment. "We are thrilled to have Southwest Airlines, an expert in bringing families to exciting destinations, on board as the official airline for the tour,"

Synopsis:

When BJ™ and Baby Bop™'s favorite toys are broken, Barney whisks them away on a magical adventure where they meet dancing teddy bears, out-of-this-world robots, life-sized musical instruments and much more! Will Barney and his friends find their way through the workshop? Can they use their imaginations to repair the toys? Find out in this all-new, live, Let's Go adventure!

Tickets for most of the DINO-MITE shows are available at www.ticketmaster.com or by calling local Ticketmaster offices. For all scheduling information visit www.barney.com.

About Barney™

As a helping hand for growing children, Barney (along with special pals Baby Bop™, BJ™ and Riff™ ) helps parents give their children the range of skills they need to grow - and he always does it with lots of fun, music and laughs. Barney & Friends™ episodes are always filled with Sharing, Caring, Imagining, Dancing and Learning and can be seen on PBS KIDS® and PBS KIDS Sprout℠. For more information about Barney and all his friends, please visit www.barney.com.

About HIT Entertainment

HIT Entertainment, owned by private equity investment group Apax Partners since June 2005, is one of the world’s leading independent children’s entertainment producers and rights-owners. HIT’s portfolio includes internationally renowned children’s properties, such as Bob the Builder™, Barney™, Thomas & Friends™, Pingu™, Rubbadubbers™ and Angelina Ballerina™. HIT acts as a representative for The Wiggles® in the UK, US and Canada and as worldwide representative for The Jim Henson Company’s library of classic family brands, including Fraggle Rock™. HIT also owns the Guinness World Records™ publishing and television property and Fireman Sam™, a joint venture with S4C. Launched in 1989, HIT’s lines of business span television and video production (including studios in the US and the UK), publishing, consumer products licensing and live events. With a catalog of more than 1,000 hours of young children’s programming, HIT sells its shows to more than 240 countries worldwide, in more than 40 different languages and has operations in the UK, US, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan. In 2005, the Company joined Comcast Corporation, PBS and Sesame Workshop to launch PBS KIDS Sprout℠, a 24-hour digital cable channel and VOD service for preschoolers. For more information, visit www.hitentertainment.com.

About Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV), the nation's largest carrier in terms of domestic passengers enplaned, currently serves 62 cities in 32 states. Based in Dallas, Southwest currently operates more than 3,000 flights a day and has 31,000+ Employees systemwide.