HIT Entertainment Digital Newsroom

Stonyfield Farm To Underwrite Barney & Friends™ On PBS KIDS®

World's Largest Organic Yogurt Manufacturer to Partner with HIT Entertainment's Barney & Friends

04/03/2006

New York, NY / Londonderry, NH

HIT Entertainment, a worldwide leader in quality preschool entertainment, has signed a deal with Stonyfield Farm, the world's leading organic yogurt manufacturer, to underwrite the popular Barney & Friends television series on PBS KIDS.

Beginning this March, Stonyfield Farm, maker of YoBaby, organic milk and yogurt for babies and toddlers, will air 15-second sponsor credits at the open and close of Barney & Friends on PBS KIDS. The integrated partnership includes promotional inserts in Barney™ DVDs and online exposure on both www.barney.com and www.pbskids.org/barney.

"Barney encourages sharing, caring, imagining and learning," says Gary Hirshberg, Stonyfield Farm President and CE-Yo. "He reinforces lessons that are important to parents and always does it with lots of fun, music and laughs. We're proud to support this series and the quality messages it delivers."

"Stonyfield Farm and Barney are synonymous with providing kids with a great start," said Jamie Cygielman, Senior Vice President, Consumer Products. "And just as parents trust Barney as a positive influence on their children, they trust Stonyfield Farm as a provider of nutritious and healthy selections for their children."

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 Stonyfield Farm
Stonyfield Farm, celebrating its 23rd year, is the world's largest organic yogurt manufacturer, and produces all natural and organic yogurt, smoothies, cultured soy, frozen yogurt, ice cream and milk. The company advocates that healthy food can only come from a healthy planet. It was the nation's first dairy processor to pay farmers not to treat cows with the synthetic bovine growth hormone rBGH. Stonyfield donates 10 percent of its profits to environmental causes; was America's first manufacturer to offset 100 percent of its CO2 emissions from its facility energy use; and recently installed the fifth largest solar array in New England to help power its production plant -- all efforts to reduce global warming.
For more information about Stonyfield Farm, its products and initiatives, visit www.stonyfield.com or call 1-800-PRO-COWS.