This country indeed will not see an image of the event

For those who wanted to follow better abroad, the World Cup would prevent Turkmenistan. This country, indeed, will not see an image of the event. Others, including including the Korea of the North, its neighbour to the South, including also the Afghanistan through an agreement with Deutsche Welle, should add some 55,000 hours of images, against "only" 41 400 hours ( 39 versus 1998) in 213 countries in 2002. In total, more than 500 broadcasters, including 240 television and 220 radio (24 for the Brazil, the France 5), covering 206 countries acquired the rights to broadcast the event, the cumulative audience could reach 32.5 billion viewers.

New media: 10

Initially, on the basis of 1998 and 2002, "we tablions on 300 broadcasters worldwide." "This goal is widely exceeded", welcomed Dominik Schmid, Executive Director in charge of television in Infront, the Swiss company which markets the 2002 and 2006 editions. Among them, more than 50 "new media", operators of telephony or Internet. Until the last moment, and contracts were thus made in more than 100 countries, including Telefonica S.A. for almost all of Latin America, T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom subsidiary) for the Germany and six Central European countries, or the Agency OSMi sub-Saharan territories. The overall value of these contracts would be EUR 120 million, or 10 of conventional television rights.

In 2002, the dissemination of images on mobile phone was limited to the Japan and, on the Web, to the official website of the FIFA. This year, the standard "package" allows the dissemination of extracts for a maximum of four minutes per game. However, some operators can disseminate all of the meetings. This is the case of T-Mobile in Germany, which will propose 20 live games via the UMTS standard. In Italy, H3G rebroadcast the entire competition, also visible on the RAI and Sky Italia, which holds 39 games on 64 exclusive.

Additional agreements with conventional broadcasters, TV Globo (Brazil) and TV4 (Sweden), focus on the dissemination of the event only on the Web. On the other hand, on the site (fifaworldcup) competition official, designed and hosted by Yahoo, a summary of two minutes per game is available one hour after the final whistle, with an embargo of 24 hours for the countries of the Asia/Middle East area and 48 hours for the Germany.

The games in HD

For the first time, the "new media" have direct access to the international broadcast Centre (IBC), in Munich, where 60 employees of HBS, the host operator and subsidiary of Infront, do provide content tailored, whose manufacture uses the technology of "pan and scan" already used for films, and comments in 8 languages, concocted in specially dedicated premises.

Infront, the offensive of the "new media" is largely the consequence of the choice, arrested as early as 2003, production of the games in high definition. Not less than 70 countries offer the event in this version, in Europe (first for all Germany/Austria, TF1 and M6 to the France, the BBC and ITV for the United Kingdom, the RAI and Sky Italia for the Italy), but also in North America (ABC/ESPN in the US, Rogers Sportsnet for the Canada), South America (TV Globo and Bandsports for the Brazil)(, Televisa and TV Azteca for the Mexico), Asia (Japan Consortium and Sky Perfect Japan, KBS, MBC and SBS for the Korea of the South, CCTV China) and even in the Middle East and North Africa (ART).

A dissemination increased by 65 in Europe

Alongside the separation for the first time in 2002 radio and TV, the sale "to cut" rights these last has to multiply the number of partners and resulted in an increase in the volume of distribution. In Europe, it is spent 6 934 hours in 1998 to 11 364 hours (45 contracts with 63 channels) in 2002, an increase of 65. This year, three chains in clear and pay Germany string, four pay-TV channels and a string plain to the Brazil acquired the rights to the event. In Poland, the 64 matches are broadcast both plaintext and encrypted. Infront boasts having thus entered into agreements with two broadcasters or in 120 countries.

In addition, a number of agreements allow foreign communities to follow the world in their own language such as Spanish and Korean to the United States. "They accused we privatize the event, but never it was the subject of such exposure, including on the channels in the clear", concludes Dominik Schmid. In think the viewers of the Maghreb and the Middle East which, for the most part, must merely summaries of the games on the national channels