BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and its media partner Infront Sports & Media have significantly boosted its live broadcast coverage for the UCI Track World Championships, with a combination of new broadcast partners and streaming via YouTube.
Cycling fans in 100 territories around the world will be able to watch the event live – including for the first time the Indian sub-continent and Malaysia.
Infront and the UCI have licensed international media rights for live, delayed, highlights and news coverage to around 30 media companies, broadcasting on free and pay TV as well as online and mobile platforms. The number of broadcast partners taking the live signal has even been doubled as compared to the 2013 edition. In total 140 media representatives have been accredited for this year’s event that takes place in Cali, Colombia.
A combination of live coverage and highlights will be available online at the UCI’s Official You Tube channel (www.youtube.com/user/ucichannel), depending on each territory’s broadcast commitment.
UCI President Brian Cookson said: “Whilst strong results were already achieved in the first year of our partnership, the collaboration with Infront is now realising its full potential. Jointly, we have secured more live broadcast partners than ever before for the UCI Track World Championships, meeting fan demand and establishing a sustainable presence on screens worldwide.”
Stephan Herth, Infront’s Executive Director Summer Sports, added: “The UCI Track World Championships have never been more accessible to fans. As always, the UCI and Infront have worked very closely to select the best possible media outlet for the event in each region. Also, looking toward the future, our focus will be on live exposure to maximise audiences and share the excitement of all the cycling disciplines and aspects of the sport.”
Here’s some detail on those global broadcasters, bringing the racing to five continents (which is all of them if memory serves): The HDTV signal will be provided by the domestic television network RCN Television, carrying out host broadcast operations with a total of 12 cameras. RCN Television reaches out to 97% of the Colombian population via its 13 TV stations – providing the event with extensive exposure in the host country. Other partners on the American continent include DirectTV (Pan South-America), Universal (USA) as well as RDS and Rogers Sportsnet (both in Canada). Across Europe, a total of 13 broadcasters will continue to feature the event in programming schedules including the BBC (UK), FranceTV (France) and BeIn Sports (France and further French-speaking territories), NOS (Netherlands), Polsat (Poland), Rai (Italy), the Viasat Group (Scandinavia) and VRT (Belgium).
In Asia, the event is growing in popularity. For the first time ever, live coverage will be available in India (through an agreement with Sony) and Malaysia (Astro). In Japan, NHK Media will broadcast a live unilateral production dedicated to their domestic audience. Al Jazeera continues to broadcast in the Middle East. In Oceania contracts were closed with SBS (Australia) and Sky New-Zealand (New Zealand). In addition, worldwide news access is ensured by SNTV and Perform.
