Sunday, June 4 2006

SINGAPORE: More than 30 billion people around the world are expected to watch the World Cup with media operators in Asia eyeing record audiences for the greatest football show on earth.

Such is the massive interest in a sport that is played in virtually every country on the planet that FIFA forecasts 32 billion people will tune into the tournament at some time over its one month duration.

This doesn’t take into account the millions more watching on streaming over the Internet or on mobile devices, where live goal alerts and match updates will keep fans abreast of the action wherever they are.

The TV ratings forecast is up from the 28.8 billion that watched the event — live matches, magazines and talks shows — joint hosted by Japan and South Korea four years ago.

While the boost is likely down to the tournament being in Europe, where football is akin to a religion, huge numbers of people will again be watching in Asia, which is home to some 60 percent of the world’s population .

In China alone, state broadcaster CCTV estimates ten billion people will accumulately watch the tournament, which explains why the emerging powerhouse is seen as the sport’s top future growth market.

“It’s hard to estimate how many people will watch TV during the World Cup, because there is the time difference,” said Zhang Bin, director of the editorial department of the CCTV Sports Centre. “But based on my experience, the accumulated number of viewers for all 64 matches will definitely exceed ten billion.”

Ten billion pairs of eyeballs do not offer themselves up every day, and companies have proven eager to exploit the opportunity.

“All ads at all periods of time during the World Cup on CCTV had been sold out by the end of April,” said Shi Ying, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Future Advertising Agency, the ad agency of CCTV sports channel.

Football is the region’s number one sport and this has not gone unnoticed among television companies and other media providers, who are offering blanket coverage — free-to-air or pay-tv — while charging a premium for advertising.

India is not known as a football nation but this goes out the window during the World Cup when ratings can be higher than when India plays a Test match.

“During the 2002 World Cup, the Indian viewership reached 75 million. We hope to take this figure to 100 million and break all previous records,” said RV Venkateish, managing director of pay-tv operator ESPN India.

Whether at home, at a bar or clustered round a tv on the sidewalk, it will be a similar scenario across Asia.

In Vietnam foreign media experts estimate 80 percent of the entire population will down tools and watch while in Bangladesh it will be the biggest television spectacle ever. “It will be the biggest television event in the country’s history and companies are queuing up to book advertisement slots,” said Ibne Hasan Khan, marketing director of Impress Telefilm, which bought the Bangladesh tv rights.

In Japan, millions will be glued to their sets watching their national side play Australia, Brazil and Croatia in their group matches.

“It is difficult to estimate the rating that the games will receive, but we believe the games will be very, very strong programmes,” said a spokesman for national network Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK). Local media have estimated the rights to the World Cup coverage in Japan alone cost 126 million dollars.

After more than 30 years in the wilderness, Australia is at the World Cup and interest is reaching “fever pitch,” said Mike Field, spokesman for free-to-air television station SBS which is showing all the World Cup games.

South Korea’s three major broadcasters — KBS, SBS and MBC — are planning extensive coverage, and expect ratings to jump up by two to three percent for each station. While the nighttime viewing hours in Asia may diminish advertising revenues, premiums are nevertheless high.

“Our revenue from World Cup-related commercials will be smaller than expected because of the difference in time,” said an official at Korea Broadcasting Advertizing Corp, but added that they will still jump 20 percent. (AFP)