ITV

Category: Sports

  • Zee Sports to move to Zee Turner 2nd bouquet

    Zee Sports to move to Zee Turner 2nd bouquet

    MUMBAI: Zee Sports, which till now has been sold as an a la carte pay channel, is being bundled as part of Zee Turner’s second bouquet of channels. The bouquet comprises five channels – HBO, Pogo, Zee Business, Vh1 and Awaaz.

    The price of the second package will increase from Rs 25 to Rs 30 per subscriber a month with effect from 1 August. Zee Sports as a standalone channel was priced at Rs 10. “The second bouquet will now include Zee Sports and the price will increase by Rs 5 per subscriber,” Zee Turner CEO Arun Poddar says.

    Zee Turner’s first bundle consists of channels like Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee News, Cartoon Network and CNBC. The regional channels of Zee are also in this pack. The bouquet is priced at Rs 58.85 a month per subscriber. The combined rate of the two bouquets after the inclusion of Zee Sports will now be Rs 88.85.

    The strength of Zee Turner’s second bouquet is led by the two Turner channels, HBO and Pogo. With Zee Sports lacking driver content, the bundling is expected to give the sports channel a boost in connectivity while allowing a rate increase for the second bouquet. Though Zee Sports was priced at Rs 10 and sold in Zee-Turner’s third bouquet, cable operators in effect were asking for a carriage fee to distribute the channel.

  • Fifa World Cup final generates viewership of 313 million: ZenithOptimedia

    Fifa World Cup final generates viewership of 313 million: ZenithOptimedia

    MUMBAI: According to ZenithOptimedia, the Fifa World Cup final between France and Italy on 9 July generated a television viewership of 313 million viewers across 56 countries. The largest audience came from China, where viewership peaked at 71.5 million, followed by Brazil, Germany, Vietnam, Indonesia, France, Russia, the U.K., Japan and Italy.

    As per the study, Germany recorded an average match viewership of 11.8 million. The cumulative audience was 658 million, a 141-per cent increase on the 2002 World Cup. Germany’s 2-0 loss to Italy in the semi-finals was watched live by 29.7 million viewers in the host nation.

    The study revealed that four Asian nations (China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Japan) ranked in the top ten for audience totals. They accounted for 49 per cent of viewing among the top eleven. Japan recorded a 64-per cent fall compared to 2002 audience levels. In China, the cumulative audience fell 58 per cent compared to 2002, when the matches were broadcast in prime time and China had qualified for the World Cup for the first time.

    Viewership in the U.S. peaked at just 9.4 million, but the cumulative audience of 235 million was 48-percent up on 2002 and 55-percent up on 1998. This was largely the result of Univision, whose broadcast of the Argentina versus Mexico match was the most-viewed sports broadcast in the history of U.S. Spanish-language television, with 6.7 million viewers, as per the data.

    In the U.K., the BBC attracted 53 per cent of the cumulative audience, but ITV broadcast the highest-rated match: the 2-2 draw between England and Sweden, which generated an audience of 18.8 million. The BBC’s best audience was 16.3 million for the match between England and Ecuador.

    Largest World Cup television audiences in millions (2006):

    Cumulative audience/Highest audience:

    China 1,820 / 71.5

    Brazil 1,140 / 60.5

    Germany 658 / 29.7

    Vietnam 650 / 29.8

    Indonesia 589 / 23.5

    France 388 / 22.2

    Russia 369 / 12.9

    U.K. 362 / 18.8

    Japan 289 / 42.3

    Italy 278 / 23.9

    ZenithOptimedia’s specialist consultancy agency Sponsorship Intelligence (SI) is the official provider of 2006 Fifa World Cup audiences figures to both Fifa and its TV agency, Infront.

  • Fifa finals get a record audience in Europe

    Fifa finals get a record audience in Europe

    MUMBAI: Football’s governing body Fifa’s marketing agency Infront has announced that the viewing audiences in Europe for the key final matches of the 2006 Fifa World Cup in Germany exceeded predictions and broke records.

    Infront says that the high in-home audience figures are even more impressive in comparison to past viewing, given today’s fragmented television market. There was also a lot of out-of-home viewing.

    Italy – The Italian team’s penalty shoot out triumph over France in the final attracted a new tournament – and recent history – record audience for Italian television. An average audience of 23.9 million in Italy watched the Azzurri win the golden trophy for the 4th time in history. The figure represented 84 per cent of Italians that were watching television at that time. Italy’s top rated match during the 1998 event was 23.5 million. During the 2002 event, it was 23.7 million.

    The record figure of 23.9 million does not include the large number of Italians who watched the games out of home at public viewing events, bars and restaurants. For example, at the capital city’s ancient Circus Maximus, a reported 200,000 fans watched the final on three giant screens. In Milan, a further 150,000 fans watched the victory on large screens in the Piazza del Duomo.

    France – In France, national broadcaster TF1, attracted 22.1 million French viewers to its coverage of the Final between Italy and France. This figure represented over 80% of the available TV audience at that
    time, the highest audience share of any French coverage of this year’s tournament.

    France’s defeat on a penalty shoot out was endured by 800,000 more French viewers compared to the 1998 final when France triumphed over Brazil.

    Germany – The German national side’s impressive progress through the event drew a consistently high television audience at home in the host nation and ended with a new record for the tournament – past and
    present – despite millions watching out-of-home at public sites.

    Germany’s 2-0 loss to Italy in the semi-finals was watched live by 29.7 million viewers at home in the host nation, scoring a market share of 84.1 per cent. Germany’s previous highest audience at this tournament was the 24.8 million who watched the side defeat Argentina in the quarterfinals.

    The figure also beats the German audience in the final in 2002, when 26.5 million witnessed Germany lose to against Brazil. It also surpasses the hitherto unbeaten record in German football viewing of 28.66 million registered for the Germany v Argentina final back in 1990. However that figure does not include the new German states in the east of the country.

    The 29.7 million audience also beats the highest German audience (24.4 million for USA v Germany) attained in 1998. As that eevnt was in France, was aired at comparable times to this year’s competition in Germany.

    Germany’s six matches this year have scored a combined TV audience on German public service broadcasters ZDF and ARD of 142.1 million, which gives an average of 23.7 million per match. This represents a 45 per cent increase in viewing over 2002.

    Neutral viewing – Data from Spain and France shows that the Germany vs Italy match was one of the most popular with ‘neutral’ viewers – those who watch a match that does not feature their own national side.

    In Spain, the match had a combined audience on Cuatro and La Sexta of 5.9 million and a market share of 41.7 per cent. This Spanish audience was also higher than both the “neutral” semi-finals in 2002 but not as high as the 2002 final.

    In France, the Germany vs Italy match was shown live on both C+ and TF1 and had a combined audience of 13.3 million and a market share of 57.2 per cent. This figure is higher than any audience during the 2002 edition when France made an early exit.

  • Ten Sports to telecast German MotoGP live on 16 July

    Ten Sports to telecast German MotoGP live on 16 July

    MUMBAI: Ten Sports will telecast live the German Grand Prix MotoGP, slated to kick off on Sunday 16 July at 2 15 pm at the Sachsenring circuit.

    Ten Sports’ live coverage will extend to the entire season of MotoGP in 2006, thus tracking all the action.

    The highlight of the Grand Prix race would be the continuing battle between Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi and the Repsol Honda duo of Nicky Hayden and Dani Pedrosa.

    Pedrosa won the British Grand Prix at Donington, while Rossi the reigning World Champion came in second after a wrist injury. Hayden finished seventh in the British GP. Nevertheless, the stakes will be high in Germany this weekend

  • Communications network Avaya does the job for Fifa

    Communications network Avaya does the job for Fifa

    MUMBAI: Avaya was the official convergence Communication provider for the recently concluded 2006 Fifa World Cup. For 32 days, the network handled a huge amount of voice and data traffic — including players’ and journalists’ accreditations, photo transmissions and match details sent around the world in real time.

    The network had become operational on 15 May and carried over 21 trillion bytes of data and achieved 99.999 per cent availability without a single major outage and free of errors.

    Avaya states that a total of 21,126 terabytes of voice and data traffic was transferred over the network between 15 May and 10 July. During that time, people have logged on to the converged communications network approximately 642,538 times and made 364,395 phone calls on the network, which represents 789,810 minutes of calling time.

    On the day of the Final between France and Italy, 111,150 megabytes of data traffic traveled over the network, 55,037 people logged on to the converged network, and 3,456 phone calls were made, representing 6,217 minutes of calling time.

    The converged network, which combined voice and data on the same infrastructure, connected the 12 host stadiums, the stadium media centers, and the Fifa headquarters in Berlin. Players, coaches, volunteers and fans alike benefited from the network that was used to issue accreditations for players and journalists, report results, track materials and inventory, confirm accommodations at Fifa’s official hotels and maintain security systems.

    Avaya FIFA World Cup programme director Andrea Rinnerberger says, “For a highly visible event such as the Fifa World Cup, it was absolutely critical for the network to work without any downtime director of the. In a very real way, the network’s excellent performance contributed to the event’s smooth operations.

    “Journalists and photographers who needed to file quickly connected to the internet directly from the field and sent photos and stories via an Avaya wireless LAN network. 32 teams, and tens of thousands of Fifa executives and employees, officials and visiting dignitaries all depended on the transportation and protocol application to get to hotels, cars, trains and airports.”

  • Zee Sports to showcase Fed Cup action in September

    Zee Sports to showcase Fed Cup action in September

    MUMBAI: Zee Sports will air the semi finals of the women team tennis event Fed Cup live from 15 to 16 September 2006.

    In the first semi final, Spain will take on Italy. In the second semi final, Belgium will clash with USA for top honours.

    In the first semi final, Spain will take on Italy. This is the fourth contest between the two nations, with the countries tied with two wins each. The last time they met was at the round robin stage of the World Group in 2000 where Spain defeated Italy 3-0, and subsequently went on to reach the final.

    The line up of the Spanish team includes Anabel Medina Garrigues,Virginia Ruano Pascual, Lourdes Dominguez-Lino, Maria Sanchez Lorenzo with Miguel Margets as captain. The Italian team will be led by Corrado Barazzutti. Other players of the team are Francesca Schiavone, Flavia Pennetta, Mara Santangelo and Romina Oprandi.

    In the second semi final, Belgium will clash with the US. This is the fourth meeting between the two nations. America enjoys a 4-0 lead. The last time they met was in the 2005 opening round in Delray Beach, Florida, where USA easily overcame an injury-hit Belgium 5-0.

    The line up for Belgium includes Kim Clijsters, Leslie Butkiewicz, Kirsten Flipkens and Caroline Maes. America’s team will consist of Jill Craybas, Jamea Jackson, Vania King and Mashona Washington.

  • Online players cash-in on Fifa World cup & score goals with web content: IAMAI

    Online players cash-in on Fifa World cup & score goals with web content: IAMAI

    BANGALORE: The Football world cup, which concluded last week, attracted sports lovers across the globe to the Internet. All major portals and mobile content providers in India had specially redesigned their content for the World Cup to feed the demand of football fans.

    Online add-ons such as mobile download of wallpapers of some of the popular football players and online and mobile games attracted the maximum number of fans to the internet, according to an official release from the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

    Says IAMAI president Dr Subho Ray, “The World Cup bonanza shows that the Internet has emerged not only as an alternative medium but as a parallel medium to a large section of the people in India. With the advent of broadband as well as mobile phones, it is possible to keep a track of the matches even on the go. Websites and mobile content companies are gradually realising the potential of both these mediums and hence are increasingly beefing up their content for such mega events and in the process successfully attracting more and more users and advertisers”.

    HT Media, for example, recorded a 5 per cent to 7 per cent increase in the online revenues, claims Hindustan Times GM Business Development Salil Kumar. Kumar also mentioned that the number of hits during the prime time period at 9 30 pm reached an average of 15,00,000, at post-midnight averaged 20,00,000 and evening 6 30 pm reached an average 5,00,000.

    According to Kumar, in terms of city-wise access to World Cup related activities, Delhi/Chandigarh topped with 40 per cent, followed by Mumbai 30 per cent, Pune 5 per cent, Ahmedabad 5 per cent, Bangalore 10 per cent, Hyderabad 5 per cent and others 5 per cent.

    States Sify Ltd VP Interactive Services Surya Mantha, “Thousands of clips of World Cup football related content were viewed on Sify’s broadband portal Sify Max in the first two weeks of the tournament”. He added that the most watched clip was related to the Brazil v/s France match on 2 July, which was viewed 25,000 times.

    Soccer fans around the world treat their favourite sport as a religion and hence increasingly want to know more and more about their favourite players. This has resulted in an offbeat category on websites, which provides other such information to the football fans. In the offbeat category, Mantha says, “A video featuring the wives/girlfriends of star football players was the most popular”.

    Online advertisers took full advantage of the World Cup fever. MSN India had advertisers such as Lenovo and LIC Housing, informs MSN India Sales and Marketing head R. Rajnish. He also mentioned that netizens mostly in the age group of 18-35 years visited their website for World Cup related activities, the release adds.

    “For Rediff.com”, says chief media revenue officer Arvindra Kanwal, “increased page views resulted in more ad inventory which in turn resulted in better revenue”. He adds, “Football as a platform brought a set of advertisers like Ranbaxy, Maruti Swift, Gillette, Microsoft, Apollo Tyres and others. Our response in page views and sponsor interest mirrored cricket and largely caught the interest of Sec A & B urban audiences in eight metros. Smaller towns were slow to respond”.

    Airtel on the other hand was one of the presenting sponsors of the Fifa World Cup on ESPN, which had the exclusive telecast rights. It provided soccer fans World Cup updates, sourced from ESPN Mobile. It also offered the official song of the FIFA World Cup as a Hello Tune & Ringtone for all Airtel customers.

    Says Bharti Airtel Ltd joint president (Mobility), “Football and World cup related content were among the most popular downloads on Airtel Live, the multi-access entertainment portal of Airtel. As per data available over the last 30 days, the official Fifa World Cup game is among the four most downloaded games. In this visually engaging game, gamers experienced the 12 official stadiums as they took one of their 32 national teams from qualification to glory. ‘Time of Our Lives’, ballad by Il Divo & Toni Braxton, which was the official Fifa World Cup song, has been among the top 10 downloaded songs in the non-film category on Airtel. Football related images were among the top five downloaded wallpapers.”

  • Fox Sports, Major League Baseball ink seven year rights agreement

    Fox Sports, Major League Baseball ink seven year rights agreement

    MUMBAI: Fox Sports and Major League Baseball have inked an extensive seven-year national television rights agreement that keeps the World Series and All-Star Game exclusively on Fox through 2013.

    In addition to the Fall and Mid-Summer Classics, the network continues as the exclusive home of the Fox Saturday Afternoon Baseball Game of the Week as well as the American or National League Championship Series on a rotating basis for the contract’s duration.

    Fox Sports’ new agreement with MLB gives the network the rights to:

    • Up to 26 Fox Saturday Baseball Game of the Week regionalised single-header broadcasts, an increase from 18 previously;
    • Exclusive coverage of the American League Championship Series in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013;
    • Exclusive coverage of the National League Championship Series in 2008, 2010 and 2012;
    • Exclusive prime-time coverage of the World Series from 2007 through 2013 with Game 1 scheduled for the first Tuesday after completion of the LCS;
    • Exclusive prime-time coverage of the All-Star Game from 2007 through 2013;
    • This Week in Baseball, MLB’s award-winning, youth-oriented magazine show which precedes the Fox Saturday Baseball Game of the Week.

    “Fox has enjoyed 11 terrific years as the broadcast home of Major League Baseball, having covered some of the game’s most memorable moments. Major League Baseball is as popular today as ever… with new young stars and veteran players performing before hundreds of millions of fans in-person and on TV each year. The schedule this agreement provides enables Fox to combine the most-watched games of the year with the No. 1 prime-time lineup in America,” said Fox Networks group president and CEO Tony Vinciquerra.

    “For some time now, Major League Baseball has been a key component of Fox’s programming strategy. The games are an invaluable promotional platform – for both our new series and returning hits such as House, 24, Prison Break, Bones, The Simpsons, and Family Guy. We look forward to many more successful years with Major League Baseball, and are eager to see who will be on top come October,” said Fox Sports entertainment president Peter Liguori.

    The expanded Fox Saturday Baseball schedule gives baseball an over-the-air, April-through-September, “Game of the Week” for the first time since 1989, and Fox also retains exclusive rights to the MLB All-Star Game, annually the highest-rated All-Star event in sports. In 2005, the MLB All-Star Game out-rated the NBA All-Star Game in households by +65 per cent (8.1 vs. 4.9), and the NFL Pro Bowl by +98 per cent (vs. 4.1). In its history, the MLB All-Star Game has never been beaten by any other All-Star event on a same-year basis.

    MLB on Fox postseason coverage has been a significant contributor to the network’s prime time ratings success among adults 18-49. Fox research calculates that over the last five years, the World Series added a tenth of a ratings point on average to Fox’s Adults 18-49 season total, which is significant given that in each of the last three seasons the difference between first and second place has been just a tenth of a point.

    By renewing its rights as the national broadcast home of Major League Baseball, Fox Sports is positioned as home to more of America’s most-watched sports events than any other network. In the last two years, Fox Sports has retained broadcast rights to the NFL through 2011, NASCAR through 2014 and now MLB through 2013, while adding coverage of college football’s prestigious Bowl Championship Series through 2010.

    Fox Sports, already on its way to a tenth year as America’s top-rated network for sports, now boasts long-term agreements with each of America’s four highest-rated sports. No other network boasts a more robust, year-round schedule.

    A look at the Fox Sports event lineup over the next four years in particular reveals just how full its schedule is from January through December:

    Cotton Bowl (January 1)
    Bowl Championship Series (January)
    Tostitos Fiesta Bowl
    FedEx Orange Bowl
    Allstate Sugar Bowl
    BCS National Championship Game (2007-2009)
    NFC Playoffs (January)
    NFC Wild Card Game
    NFC Divisional Playoffs (2)
    NFC Championship Game (January)
    Super Bowl XLII (February 2008)
    Pro Bowl (February 2008)
    Daytona 500 (February)
    NASCAR regular- season coverage (February-May)
    MLB regular-season coverage (April-September)
    MLB All-Star Game (July)
    NFL regular-season (September-December)
    American or National League Championship Series (October)
    World Series (October)

    “Looking out over the next several years, Fox Sports has one of the most impressive, if not the most impressive, year-long schedules of any single outlet in the Big Four network era. Marquee sporting events have been, and will remain, among the best vehicles to corral mass audiences, especially hard-to-reach young males, and this schedule is about as DVR-proof as a sports schedule can be,” said Fox Sports chairman David Hill.

  • Ten Sports bags telecast rights for Uefa Champions League

    Ten Sports bags telecast rights for Uefa Champions League

    MUMBAI: Ten Sports has won exclusive telecast rights to the Uefa Champions League for the next three years.

    Telecast of matches will start in September 2006 and will include 1,000 hours of Europe’s leading football action, the Dubai-headquartered channel said in a press release.

    Ten’s acquisition for the next three seasons of one of the marquee events of the world football calendar marks the first time that Champions League soccer will not be seen on ESPN Star Sports in the Indian subcontinent.

    The Uefa Champions League 2006-07 will be the 52nd edition of the club tournament. The final will be played at Olympic Stadium, Athens, on 23rd May 2007. The live coverage of the Champions League matches on Ten Sports starts from 12 September till the final on 23 May 2007.

    There will also be daily special programs for the Champions League, bringing goals and action for every game played, states an official release.

    The release quotes Uefa CEO Lars-Christer Olsson as saying, “We are delighted to welcome Ten Sports as a new broadcast partner for the Uefa Champions League from next season. This agreement will undoubtedly benefit football fans throughout the entire Indian subcontinent. We look forward to working with Ten Sports to build up the Uefa Champions League in this important region.”

    Ten Sports CEO Chris McDonald offers, “This is a great step forward for us and further improves an amazing year for Ten Sports… We have now added the best club football in the world to our sporting line-up.”

    Adds vice-president programming Peter Hutton, “We will have our own live studio shows around each day of Champions League football, bringing goals and action from every game played that day, further enhancing the viewing experience for a tournament that is growing in stature every year and is by far the most competitive club football in the world.”

  • South African broadcaster SABC signs TV rights deal with Fifa

    South African broadcaster SABC signs TV rights deal with Fifa

    MUMBAI: The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has been awarded the broadcasting rights for all Fifa competitions between 2007 and 2014, which include the two Fifa World Cup final competitions and the two Fifa Confederations Cups that are due to take place during this period.

    The next edition of the Fifa World Cup takes place in 2010 in Africa.

    The agreement consists of all main audiovisual rights for both free and pay TV as well as radio. In addition, SABC is committed to ensuring wide access for the entire South African media industry including potential sub-licensees.

    Fifa president Joseph S. Blatter says, “We are convinced that we have found in SABC a partner that can deliver the beautiful game to South African viewers in an excellent manner. Importantly, its coverage will go far beyond Fifa World Cup broadcasts since it comprises guaranteed coverage of all other Fifa tournaments for men and women and at senior and youth levels so as to promote all of the different facets of the game and strengthen women’s and youth development particularly in South Africa. SABC is joining our alliance to use football to build a better future. I am extremely happy with this momentous deal.”

    SABC says that it is committed to playing its part in ensuring that the radio and television broadcasts of the 2010 Fifa World Cup reach the largest possible audience. This contributes to its goal of national building and total empowerment of all African citizens.