BigStar Entertainment Launches Broadband Initiative

BigStar Entertainment Inc. (NASDAQ: BGST), which operates www.bigstar.com, a leading Shop-A-Tainmentô destination and online movie store, today launched its streaming media product known as BigStar Broadband Theaterô.The BigStar Broadband Initiative positions BigStar to take advantage of the forthcoming ""video-on-demand"" revolution and supports BigStar's strategy of providing a Shop-A-Tainment experience for consumers. Shop-A-Tainment is the new Internet term that describes the combination of a fun online shopping experience with an entertaining, interesting, and informative environment.Now, before making a purchase, visitors to www.bigstar.com can access and view in real time thousands of movie trailers from anywhere on BigStar's site. The trailers can be viewed at a variety of transmission speeds in RealVideo or Windows Media formats using BigStar's proprietary BigStar Broadband Theater, which can be downloaded at no cost at bigstar.comDavid Friedensohn, CEO of BigStar Entertainment, said: ""The launch of the BigStar Broadband Initiative is a significant strategic step in the evolution of our Shop-A-Tainment strategy. Our audience can now view a movie trailer online and access proprietary content about the movie before purchasing it at bigstar.com. Along with our new relationships with StarMedia and ValueVision, and our existing relationships with AOL's MovieFone, Shop-at-AOL, Women.com, Earthlink, Yahoo! Chat and other major partners, we are preparing bigstar.com for the digital revolution in filmed entertainment. This is just the beginning of a bold new direction for BigStar Entertainment.""BigStar will use BigStar Broadband Theater as the platform for the development of its technical infrastructure and marketing knowledge network. This will enable BigStar Entertainment to deploy digital streaming and downloads of filmed entertainment on a larger commercial scale.Additional features and initiatives are in development that will enable bigstar.com to offer more broadband content and ensure that BigStar retains its position as a leading Shop-a-Tainment destination.The BigStar Broadband Initiative is BigStar's latest move to cement its position as the number one filmed entertainment destination on the Web. This week, BigStar announced a wide-ranging alliance with StarMedia (NASDAQ: STRM). Last week, BigStar became the exclusive filmed entertainment provider to ValueVision International (NASDAQ: VVTV), a leading national shopping network, which is approximately 40 percent owned by GE Equity and NBC and offers live programming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. ValueVision and BigStar will produce a weekly television show featuring news and gossip about movies, celebrities, and celebrity merchandise. This brings BigStar's Shop-A-Tainment functionality to the mass market of ValueVision's 31 million households - viewers will be able to order BigStar's filmed entertainment either by telephone or online at www.bigstar.com. The alliance positions both companies at the digital crossroads of the Internet and television.About BigStar EntertainmentBigStar Entertainment, (www.bigstar.com; AOL keyword: BigStar) is a leading Shop-A-Tainment filmed entertainment destination site, based on internal analysis of traffic, sales and other metrics. www.bigstar.com is exclusively dedicated to filmed entertainment products and sells more than 40,000 titles of videos and digital video discs (DVDs).