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Tag: Fifa World Cup

  • 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.

  • 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.”

  • 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.”

  • Casbaa expresses concern over signal piracy during soccer World Cup in Hong Kong

    Casbaa expresses concern over signal piracy during soccer World Cup in Hong Kong

    MUMBAI: As the Fifa World Cup 2006 draws to a close on Sunday 9 July, the Cable and Satellite Broadcast Association of Asia (Casbaa) says that the unlicensed screening of the top-line matches in bars and clubs has been alarmingly widespread in Hong Kong.

    Such blatant breaches of copyright are a worrying issue and a significant hurdle for Hong Kong’s efforts to position itself as a genuine “World City”.

    While the World Cup has boosted Hong Kong bar revenues by up to 50 per cent independent estimates suggest that at least one-third of the cash has been generated by screening pirated TV programming from markets such as the Philippines and South Africa.

    Casbaa chairman Marce Fenez says, “We are very concerned with the ongoing tolerance of widespread piracy in one of the world’s most advanced economies – Hong Kong. Despite efforts by Hong Kong to champion its world class status, when it comes to the basics of sports and entertainment intellectual property rights protection, it still lags behind other media hubs such as Singapore, Sydney, Seoul and Tokyo.”

    According to The World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Ranking 2005-2006, Hong Kong dropped seven places to 28 out of the 117 economies measured in the study. A weakening in the protection of intellectual property rights was partially attributable to the decline in Hong Kong’s ranking.

    Fenez adds, “Collaboration on all fronts between the government, industry, bar and club owners and the general public is central to rectifying the situation and protecting Hong Kong’s reputation.

    “Casbaa has been monitoring the market on behalf of its members and legal actions are planned against establishments screening unlicensed sports programming.”

    Casbaa has also issued a public notice to reinforce the message that screening pay-TV services without legal subscriptions is against the law and that legal actions will be taken against bars and clubs that refuse to cease these activities.

    Under Hong Kong law, bars and clubs may only display pay-TV channels under an appropriate subscription from Hong Kong licensed pay-TV operators such as Hong Kong Cable, now Television and TVB Pay Vision.

    Overseas pay-TV operators such as Dream of the Philippines, MultiChoice of South Africa and UBC True of Thailand are authourised to offer pay-TV subscriptions in their respective jurisdictions and they cannot and do not offer subscriptions in Hong Kong. The display of overseas pay-TV channels in Hong Kong by bars and club owners, using special decoders is illegal.

  • Avaya handles nine trillion bytes of data and voice transmission during the Fifa World Cup

    Avaya handles nine trillion bytes of data and voice transmission during the Fifa World Cup

    MUMBAI: Handling everything from players’ and journalists’ accreditations, to transmitting photos and match details around the world in real time, the converged network from Avaya, an official partner of the 2006 Fifa World Cup has managed a communication network that’s free of errors.

    Avaya, which provides business communications applications, systems and services. The converged network – which combines voice and data on the same infrastructure — connects the 12 host stadiums, the stadium media centers in Munich, Berlin and Dortmund and the Fifa headquarters in Berlin.

    Players, coaches, volunteers and fans alike benefit from the network that is being 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.

    According to Avaya, at the halfway point in the tournament, the network has performed flawlessly and without any downtime, which is critical for a highly visible event such as the Fifa World Cup. For example, for the first 20 matches, the cumulative worldwide television viewing audience was almost 1.26 billion people. The total of voice and data bytes transferred over the network since it went ‘live’ on 1 June 2006 is 9.8 terabytes (or 9.8 trillion bytes of traffic). The average amount of traffic transmitted on Avaya network each day during the Fifa World Cup is 250,000 gigabytes.

    People have logged onto the converged communications network approximately 567,000 times, to date, and over 296,000 phone calls have been made on the network, which represents 632,297 minutes of calling time.

    Thousands of people have been using the high-speed Wireless Lan access from Avaya that have made connectivity easy and convenient for staff working temporarily in an area of the stadium or Fifa Headquarters Hotel.

    Journalists and photographers working in the stadiums can quickly connect to the Internet via an Avaya wireless Lan network and send photos and stories directly from the field.

    Avaya’s Fifa World Cup programme director Andrea Rinnerberger says, “Whether it’s our team of Avaya technical experts or the team of players on the field, the same rules apply: excellent preparation is critical to success. For months, the network Avaya built for the Fifa World Cup underwent rigorous testing in configuration, fail-over and resiliency.

    You might say we were in ‘intensive training’ for the tournament. Achieving 99.99 per cent network availability and reliability to date is the result of these high-powered IT ‘workouts’ that enable us to be fully ready for the expected and unexpected.”

    The unexpected arrived for the Avaya team of technicians working at a match at the Fifa World Cup stadium in Munich when Argentine football great Diego Maradona ducked into the stadium’s technical center to escape autograph seekers, and found himself surrounded by blinking monitors and racks of media servers and gateways that comprise the network Avaya built for Fifa. After his — and the Avaya team’s — initial surprise, the former football star was introduced to the world of high technology, with a tour of the network that Avaya deployed.

    Rinnerberger said, “It’s a ‘World Cup moment,’ but it illustrates Avaya’s dedication to being prepared for anything and everything. We bring the same dedication to the enterprise customers we serve around the world.”

  • EA releases World Cup game, announces renewed partnership with Fifa

    EA releases World Cup game, announces renewed partnership with Fifa

    MUMBAI: Electronic Arts has started to ship the 2006 Fifa World Cup game to stores around the world.

    The event’s only officially licensed videogame has developed enhanced gameplay attributes and graphics.

    Along with the release of 2006 Fifa World Cup, EA and Fifa announced the extension of their long-term partnership, making EA the worldwide and exclusive Fifa Licensee for soccer action games across all console platforms, mobile phones and online formats. The on-going partnership will allow EA to continue to bring World Cup gaming experiences to consumers, and includes games for the future World Cups in 2010 and 2014.

    “Renewing our strategic partnership with Fifa will enable us to continue to deliver the most authentic football titles to fans who have helped to make our Fifa games the most successful football videogame franchise in the world,” said EA’s Gerhard Florin, Executive Vice President and General Manager for International Publishing.

    In 2006 Fifa World Cup, users can step into the heart of the action as they play their favorite team or most loathed opponent. Featuring stunning visual representations of the world’s superstar players, gamers experience the 12 official stadiums as they take their team from qualification to glory. In addition to taking control of one of 127 national teams, players will enjoy groundbreaking new play modes. Global Challenge tests even the biggest soccer fanatic by recreating classic moments in Fifa World Cup history with modern teams. True champions can challenge their friends in eight-way multiplayer matches and take advantage of tremendous in-game un-lockable content such as legendary players and exclusive licensed football apparel.

    2006 Fifa World Cup is available in North America, Europe and Asia on PlayStation2, the Xbox and Xbox 360, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy, PC and mobile as well as the PSP (PlayStation Portable). The game is rated “E” (Everyone) by the ESRB and has a PEGI rating of 3+.

    In India, the World Cup PC Game is priced at Rs 1,299 and the PlayStation2 and PSP games are priced at Rs 2,499 and Rs 2,999 respectively.

  • Excel Home Videos releases movie ‘Goal’ on DVD

    Excel Home Videos releases movie ‘Goal’ on DVD

    MUMBAI: Goal! It’s all about football! Excel Home Videos, the Home Entertainment distribution and marketing arm of Excel Productions AudioVisuals, has released the movie on football — Goal on DVD.

    The DVD is priced at Rs 599. The Buena Vista Home Entertainment product Goal is directed by Danny Cannon.The story trails Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker) as he overcomes challenges to play for New Castle United and attain glory in club football and rub shoulders with the likes of David Beckham, Allan Shearer, Raul Gonzales and Zinedine Zidane (playing themselves).

    Excel Home Entertainment holds exclusive licensee agreement with Hollywood studios like Twentieth Century Fox, Buena Vista International, Hit Entertainment, Britannica, Hearst Entertainment and Merchant Ivory Productions.

    Says Excel Home Videos MD M N Kapasi, “The DVD is definitely a collector’s item for connoisseurs of football and a true tribute to the world’s favourite game”

    In a statement issued, the DVD also offers loads of bonus features for soccer enthusiasts. The bonus features include the Golden Moments of Fifa World Cup, The Beauty of the Game (A documentary on the Spirit of Football), a special feature on the 2006 Fifa World Cup in Germany, Audio Commentary, Making of the Movie, Trailer of Goal 2 among others.

    The movie is the first in the trilogy of movies dedicated to the greatest sport of the modern world. It is credited as the most realistic movie ever made on the game with real matches in real stadiums with real players, to unprecedented access to clubs like New Castle United, according to the statement.

    The second part (Trailer included in DVD) follows the protagonist’s journey as he joins Real Madrid to play along side football greats like Ronaldo, Beckham, Raul and others.

    Meanwhile,Goal II stands on the sidelines for its European debut.

  • Delhi High Court restrains 92 cable operators from unauthorised telecast of World Cup

    Delhi High Court restrains 92 cable operators from unauthorised telecast of World Cup

    NEW DELHI: The Delhi Court granted stay to ESPN Star Sports, the official broadcaster of the Fifa World Cup, in favor of its application for a civil suit filed against 92 cable operators across the country for unauthorised broadcast of the Fifa World Cup restraining all the cable operators from showing Fifa through any other channel other than ESPN Star Sports.

    The channel has an exclusive deal with Fifa to telecast all the matches of the Fifa World Cup in territory of India. After this order anyone still showing FIFA World Cup through any other channel will be held in contempt of court and liable for prosecution, says an official release.

    Elaborating on this, ESPN Software India Pvt Ltd AVP Affiliate Sales Rajesh Kaul says, “No other channel, whether pay, free to air or terrestrial is authorised to provide, show or distribute the Fifa World Cup Germany 2006 in the territory of India. Also carriage, reception or distribution of the Fifa World Cup Germany 2006 by any MSO, Cable Operator, Sub-Operator without written authorization from ESPN Star Sports is a violation of copyrights and hence an illegal activity. Strict and legal action will be taken against the operators who violate the court orders. Post the order; police raids have already been started.”

    The 92 cable operators restrained from the unauthorized telecast are from Tamil Nadu, Jharkand, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Assam, Tripura, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar and Punjab, adds the release.

    “The 92 cable operators across the country were broadcasting by means of wireless diffusion the services of free to air international channels like TV 5 Cambodia TV, CC5 Channel, CCTV1, Super Sports, Multi-choice and Dream Satellite, thereby infringing the copyright of ESPN Star Sports. Today after an application in the Delhi High Court, the judge has restrained these operators from carrying and distributing the World Cup by any means whatsoever, without authorized permission from ESPN Star Sports. Operators showing the Fifa World Cup through other channels should stop this to avoid legal court action,” adds Kaul.

  • 5 million visit Fifa website on Day 1 of WC

    5 million visit Fifa website on Day 1 of WC

    MUMBAI: With the Fifa World Cup in full swing, comScore Networks analysis reveals that over 5 million users worldwide visited the official website hosted by Yahoo! at Fifaworldcup.yahoo.com on the opening day of the Fifa World Cup.

    According to the digital media measurement company comScore, this was followed by an average of 4.4 million visitors during the opening weekend.

    Additionally, comScore revealed the site served more than 400,000 video streams on the opening day and averaged approximately 375,000 streams per day throughout the weekend.

    As per a release issued by the company, 57 per cent of the page views occurring during the opening weekend were from the English-language section of the site. While in the non-English language content, the Spanish language section made up 14 per cent of page views.

    The Asian language content also drew significant traffic with six per cent of the pages viewed in Japanese, three per cent in Chinese and just one per cent in Korean, combining for more than 18 million page views per day, adds the release.

  • Viewership of Fifa World Cup in Europe beats expectations

    Viewership of Fifa World Cup in Europe beats expectations

    MUMBAI: Since kicking off last Friday 9 June, the 2006 Fifa World Cup in Germany has received a strong response not just in terms of stadium attendance but also in terms of television viewership in Europe.

    Initial viewing figures have been provided by football governing body Fifa’s and Infront’s research agency Sponsorship Intelligence, from the first three days of play.

    In Germany, the ZDF coverage of the tournament’s opening game featuring the host nation was watched by 20.13 million, a market share of 76 per cent. It was the most viewed Fifa World Cup opening match in history of German television.

    England’s opening match against Paraguay reached 84 per cent market share in the UK. 12 million people tuning in BBC One’s coverage, which matched the average for England’s group stage games in 2002. This rating does not include the out-of-home viewing television audience, which is expected to be significant due to the air time of this match which was on Saturday 10 June at 2 pm.

    Even countries that were not playing in the time period when the ratings were taken have fared well on the television ratings front. A case in point is France. The first three games broadcast on TF1 have shown much improved ratings on average than all the games in 2002 not featuring France (12).

    Netherlands’s qualification for the 2006 event (the country failed to qualify in 2002) has helped boost the ratings in the country. Around 5.5 million fans watched the team beat Serbia-Montenegro on NL 2. The market share of 89.4 per cent, was well over half more than tuned into the 2002 final.

    In Poland, the audience for the game against Ecuador surpassed the 2002 top TVR which involved the final. Poland’s opening game got a TVR of 25.7 versus 25.3 for the 2002 Brazil versus Germany final. The match was covered by TVP 1.

    In Portugal the team’s efforts against Angola drew 2.9 million viewers (a market share of 81 per cent). This was over 30 per cent higher than the top rated audience four years ago. In Norway England’s game against Paraguay on TV 2 attracted a market share of 81 per cent .

    At the moment, the assessment of the viewing patterns is based on ‘overnights’ and audiences could be significantly higher once “out of home” viewing is added in to the total. This is likely to run at record levels for this World Cup, given the current public viewing trend and the effect of new media options.

    Infront Sports and Media will provide further summary highlights of television audience figures worldwide on a regular basis throughout the course of the tournament.

    The company is responsible for the worldwide marketing and sales of the broadcast rights to the 2006 Fifa World Cup. It has made the event more widely available than ever before. There are over 500 broadcasters covering the Fifa World Cup and coverage is being provided in virtually every country of the world.