ITV

Tag: Germany

  • Initiative Worldwide to track global TV viewing patterns for Fifa World Cup

    Initiative Worldwide to track global TV viewing patterns for Fifa World Cup

    MUMBAI: As the world starts watching the Fifa World Cup from tomorrow, Initiative will launch its latest ViewerTrack operation for the same with the opening match between Germany and Costa Rica on 9 June.

    With the spread of Initiative agencies in more than 50 markets across the network, Initiative Futures, it’s global media research arm, will track global TV viewing figures, match-by-match and country-by-country.

    Over the course of the tournament, Initiative will collect comprehensive overnight audience data for every match. The data will cover viewing trends for all major demographic groups, split by age, gender and social class. These will inform which matches are most valuable to advertisers and sponsors.

    Taking advantage of its experience in tracking the world’s major sporting events, such as the Fifa World Cup, European Championships, and the Formula 1 World Championships, Initiative will make comparisons between sports.

    Initiative will publish weekly and daily insightful reports on audience levels and trends, and their implications for advertisers and sponsors. The reports will be published on the following dates:

    Initiative’s daily and weekly reports will complement each other to provide full and comprehensive television viewing analysis throughout the tournament. With overnight data from across the network, the daily reports will provide timely information on recent games.

    The weekly reports will then give the agency an opportunity to reflect on data for a number of matches in a broader context.

    These daily and weekly reports will cover key issues such as:

    -Viewing match of the week – Which match enjoyed the highest average live global audience?
    -Viewing country of the week – In which markets were average live audiences highest?
    -2006 vs. 2002 comparison – Which markets saw the greatest change in live audiences compared with World Cup 2002?
    -Mover of the week – Which markets saw the greatest change in live audiences throughout the 2006 tournament?

  • McDonald’s gets a bite of Fifa WC with Player Escort Program

    McDonald’s gets a bite of Fifa WC with Player Escort Program

    MUMBAI: As a worldwide sponsor and Official Partner of the 2006 Fifa World Cup McDonald’s introduces the Player Escort Program, which allows 1,408 children aged 6 to 10 years to walk onto the field hand-in-hand with the world’s best football players, at the start of all 64 official World Cup matches.

    Selected from a total of 51 countries, this year’s Player Escort Program consists of 226 international children and 1,182 children from host country Germany, informs an official release.

    In addition, the McDonald’s Player Escorts will also get a chance to experience the thrill of the Fifa World Cup through friendly football matches as part of their own tournament held in select cities in Germany during the World Cup, adds the release.

    As a key marketing strategy, McDonald’s outlets around the world, are involving customers through special promotions, contests, advertisements, in-store activations and special menu items to bring the excitement of Fifa World Cup to local communities. For example, McDonald’s outlets in India have introduced a Foosball Freekick indoor table football game, where kids get the chance to take penalty shots against a goalkeeper and win prizes. In addition, special meals centred around the football theme cater to kids and adults alike.

    Using the Internet as a medium, McDonald’s customers around the world have a chance to participate in the Fifa World Cup experience through an exclusive global sponsorship of the McDonald’s/FIFA Fantasy Game on http://www.FIFAworldcup.com, available in nine languages. The game offers football fans the opportunity to manage a squad of football superstars and compete against celebrity fantasy teams.

    To top it all, McDonald’s is also giving away thousands of 2006 Fifa World Cup tickets through in-restaurant promotions, media tie-ins and special employee incentives in select McDonald’s markets, adds the release.

    McDonald’s corporate VP Global Marketing Jeff Carl said, “McDonald’s has the ability to touch more than 50 million people each day, so we are in the unique position to deliver the fun and excitement of one of the world’s most prestigious football events in truly engaging and surprising ways.”

    In keeping with the company’s “i’m lovin’ it” strategy of developing stronger connections with its customers around the world, Carl added, “Because we want our customers to feel closer to the World Cup, we have created a wide range of exclusive activities to bring the tournament to life.”

    McDonald’s has served as sponsor and Official Partner of the Fifa World Cup since 1994 in the United States, continuing through 1998 in France, 2002 in Korea and Japan and 2006 in Germany and in true football spirit, their active efforts once again keep the fever rising high!

  • DD-1 to telecast 2006 Fifa WC finals live

    DD-1 to telecast 2006 Fifa WC finals live

    MUMBAI: With only one day to go for the big event, Doordarshan has secured the telecast rights for four matches of the 2006 Fifa World Cup, including the big final to be played on 9 July.

    The rights allow the channel to telecast the opening ceremony live from Germany on Friday 9 June from 7 50 pm to 8 30 pm on DD-1. This will be followed by a live telecast of the opening match between Germany Vs. Costa Rica from Munich, from 9 30 pm to 11 30 pm.

    The semi finals to be held on 4 and 5 July respectively, will also be telecast live on DD-1.

    As mentioned earlier, the final on 9 July will be telecast at 11 30 pm on DD-1 on terrestrial mode.

    Meanwhile, a one hour capsule of highlights of daily matches will also be telecast from 4 pm to 5 pm from 10 to 28 June and in the first week of July.

    To key in on all the action, every match telecast on the channel will be preceeded and followed by a pre-match and post-match analysis.

  • News agency AFP secures deal with Refresh Mobile for WC updates

    News agency AFP secures deal with Refresh Mobile for WC updates

    MUMBAI: Global news agency AFP has struck a deal with mobile magazine developer Refresh Mobile to allow football fans to keep up to date with the World Cup via their phones.

    AFP’s deal with the mobile agency involves it supplying football-related content, including a World Cup diary, match previews, results and standings via mobile magazines.

    Refresh Mobile is present in the UK. It plans to launch in Germany this week and by the end of the year in the US.

    The magazines will be published twice daily and can be downloaded by texting a keyword to 63333.

    AFP’s partnership with Refresh Mobile is set to last beyond the World Cup with both parties involved in discussions about a continual service.

    Despite having ad space available, Refresh has so far failed to sign up any brands for the AFP publication.

    Refresh Mobile marketing director Elaine Devereux said that the company plans to take its mobile magazines to new markets in the near future.

  • Amrita TV lines up Fifa World Cup specials

    Amrita TV lines up Fifa World Cup specials

    MUMBAI: With the countdown to the 2006 Fifa World Cup fast approaching, Amrita Television, is now running a Fifa segment in its news bulletins.

    For a duration of about six minutes, the World Cup tele-clip will include, a history of World Cup, team profiles and a general item on the warm-up matches.

    A reciepient of 15 Kerala State TV Awards, Amrita TV in preparation for the big sporting event, has already profiled participating teams including Brazil, Argentina, England, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Holland and Portugal. 

    The channels coverage of the World Cup will also feature famous personalities and celebrities selecting their favourite team, accompanying reasons for that selection.

    With the commence of the World Cup on 9 June, Amrita TV plans to invite guests on the breakfast show to analyse the game, telecast the Goal of the Day, with pop-ups on the sidelights of the day’s game. Another segment includes, Players to Watch.

    In addition, Amrita TV has also published a leaflet containing the match schedule for the World Cup, along with additional attractions on the Channel. It has been distributed free of cost, across various centres, informs an official release.

  • Globecast will deliver HDTV Fifa World Cup for Sky Italia

    Globecast will deliver HDTV Fifa World Cup for Sky Italia

    MUMBAI: Global content management and delivery firm GlobeCast has been selected by Sky Italia to provide HDTV contribution for the World Cup of Football from the International Broadcasting Centre (IBC) in Munich to Sky’s headquarters outside of Milan, Italy.

    The event kicks off on 9 June in Germany and airs in India on ESPN Star Sports.

    This solution includes both fibre and satellite contribution to ensure a seamless broadcast.

    The contribution service provided by GlobeCast is an end-to-end solution including routing and transmission via fibre, as well as the provision of encoding and decoding equipment in HD.

    GlobeCast will also provide HD satellite coverage as a backup for the event, using capacity on Eutelsat’s Eurobird 3 satellite at 33º East. This satellite coverage will guarantee a high level of reliability and service quality, especially with the inauguration of the latest HD-ready member of GlobeCast’s proprietary fleet of Satellite Newsgathering (SNG) vehicles. This particular truck is the first such all-HD vehicle in the Italian market.

    The service package provided by GlobeCast also includes a 24 hour on-site customer support and technical assistance desk, staffed by GlobeCast’s technical experts.

  • ESS roots for subscription ramp up from cable ops ahead of soccer season

    ESS roots for subscription ramp up from cable ops ahead of soccer season

    MUMBAI: Riding on the Fifa World Cup wave, which kicks off next week in Germany, ESPN Star Sports (ESS) is asking for a substantial increase in the subscriber base from cable networks across the country.

    ESS is asking for a 20 to 30 per cent hike from the major networks. And, in smaller markets the channel is targetting an increase as high as 70 per cent from those networks which are terribly underdeclared.

    ESPN Software India VP sales and marketing Sricharan Iyengar says, “Our aim is to use the World Cup event reactivate in those networks where we are absent. We are looking for at least a 20 per cent growth in the subscription base from the major networks. In smaller markets we are looking at a raise from anything between 30 to 70 per cent.”

    Sources say that InCable has signed a deal allowing for a 20 per cent raise. On the other hand, Hathway CEO K Jayaraman, while declining to comment on any figures maintains that when the yearly contract was renewed with ESS in March, there was no undue pressure put on them by the broadcaster on acount of the Fifa World Cup.

    In addition to increasing subscription declarations ESS, this fiscal, is also targetting a 50 per cent growth in subscription revenue. That is because in addition to the Fifa World Cup, it will also air two cricket series involving India. One of them sees the Indian cricket team touring South Africa in December. Iyengar says, “We hope to achieve a 50 per cent growth in subscription revenue this fiscal. We are kicking this off with the World Cup”.

  • TNS to launch online access panels in Malaysia and Thailand

    TNS to launch online access panels in Malaysia and Thailand

    MUMBAI: TNS is launching its 6th dimension online access panels in Malaysia and Thailand. The panels, which will be introduced in August and September this year, will cover the major cities in each country, where internet usage is now at significant levels and growing fast.

    TNS regional director for Asia Pacific access panels Mark Walton said, “Since we launched our 6th dimension initiative in Asia Pacific last year, we have seen rapid growth in the use of our online services, with over 500 projects conducted in the past 12 months. This not only allows us to offer research solutions faster and more cost-effectively, but ensures that the well-managed panels and questionnaires deliver consistently top-quality research. The adoption of online services in Malaysia and Thailand is a natural development for TNS and our clients – and more markets will follow in 2007 as we extend our services further in the emerging markets.”

    With the introduction of the new panels, TNS will offer 6th dimension services in nine markets across Asia Pacific to include: Australia, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, incorporating over 800,000 active panel members.

    TNS launched 6th dimension online panels in February 2005 across six countries in Europe: France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and the UK and operates 6th dimension online panels in the US.

    Walton added, “As with all of our 6th dimension panels, the new panels in Malaysia and Thailand will be supported by an extensive programme of validations and research-on-research, demonstrating that the panels offer representative samples of the online population in each market, with high quality results and insights.”

  • Cinefoundation winners announced

    Cinefoundation winners announced

    CANNES: The Cannes Film Festivals is not only about the big names from cinema. And this is evident from the Cinéfondation that Gilles Jacob and Pierre Viot created in 1998 to promote the discovery of a new generation of filmmakers. An official selection of school films was therefore presented during the Festival. This year, 17 films from Australia, Asia, Europe, North America and South America were selected from the 1100 submitted.

    The Jury presided by Andrei Konchalovsky and composed of Sandrine Bonnaire, Tim Burton, Daniel Brühl, Souleymane Cisse and Zbigniew Preisner awarded prizes to the following films:

    1st Prize:- GE & ZETA – directed by Gustavo Riet, Universidad del Cine, Argentina

    2nd Prize:- MR. SCHWARTZ, MR. HAZEN & MR. HORLOCKER – directed by Stefan Mueller, Fachhochschule Wiesbaden, Germany

    Joint 3rd Prize: – MOTHER, directed by Siân Heder,American Film Institute, USA

    A VÍRUS- directed by Ágnes Kocsis, Színház- és Filmmuvészeti Egyetem, Hungary.

  • Viacom to launch Comedy Central in Germany next year

    Viacom to launch Comedy Central in Germany next year

    MUMBAI: MTV Germany will launch the first dedicated comedy channel on free-to-view German television. Comedy Central launches next year.

    To this end, the channel will broadcast not only shows from its American namesake, but also home-grown German productions. In addition, it will provide a platform for local comedy talent.

    MTV Germany vice president Markus Andorfer will oversee Comedy Central in addition to Nickelodeon. He says, “In the US, we have made a name for ourselves with programmes such as South Park, Chappelle’s Show and the Emmy Award-winning Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The schedule will be tailored to German tastes, to help us reach the 14-49 year olds audience in Germany.”

    Andorfer oversaw the launch of Nickelodeon, successfully establishing it in the marketplace since it began broadcasting in September 2005.

    Comedy Central’s channel manager in Germany Thorsten Sievert says, “This new position is particularly challenging, because there has never been a 24-hour comedy channel on German television.”