Underwriting

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is underwriting www.Shale.tv, an on-line video channel that will “provide a platform for in-depth information, discussion and analyses about the Barnett Shale and other shale natural gas plays in the U.S.,” according to the website. Despite Chesapeake’s role, the site’s creators “hope to provide thorough, accurate and independent information about the complex issues and opportunities of developing natural gas domestically.” The television-style programming on Shale.tv will be led by managing editor Tracy Rowlett, who was previously a news anchor at KTVT-TV in Dallas. Chesapeake has promised not to meddle in the project, and journalists set to work on the site’s three hours of new programming each day have been promised editorial independence, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal. Last year Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon and Chesapeake founded the American Clean Skies Foundation and put former Oklahoma Corporation Commission Chair Denise Bode in charge (see Daily GPI, July 19, 2007). Earlier this year the organization published the first issue of its magazine and unveiled Clean Skies TV, an Internet-based television channel (see Daily GPI, April 11). Earlier this month Chesapeake sold its interests in 90,000 net acres of leasehold and natural gas properties in the Arkoma Basin of the Woodford Shale to BP America Inc. for $1.75 billion, enabling it to redeploy capital to its Barnett, Haynesville and Marcellus shale plays and improve its capital structure (see Daily GPI, July 18).