Agreement with Czech TV

12/11/07 23:37 PM
On 13 November 2007, agreement between WOC organising committee and Czech TV (ČT) was signed, which ensures television coverage of WOC 2008.
Almost all competitions will be recorded, just with an exception of sprint qualification. By now, ČT supposes to bring live broadcast from relay event, but decision on live coverage will be subject of further discussions, because WOC organizers would decided to preffer middle final. The reason is the latter will pass on Thursday late afternoon, which should attract more interest amongst public than relay on Sunday morning. Moreover it is technically impossible to bring both women and men competition at once and show them mixxed, so these would be neccessary to pass separately, which would make the programme too long. ČT will act also as producer of the TV coverage and plans to place 12 cameras in the competition area. All the records will be offered through EBU (European Broadcasting Union) network to other parties, with the interest awaited firstly, but not only, from TV channels of Scandinavian countries or Swizerland. Records caught by the TV cameras will also be projected on large screens installed in the competitions arenas.
Organizers, as well as ČT staff involved in WOC 2008, already experienced first TV coverage of O-event in early August this year. Sprint competition of MTBO WOC 2007, which took place in the Czech Republic, was recoreded and broadcasted by ČT. Very well functioning was the television graphics (supplied by AKI Sport) and transmitting of split times (using system of Racom) and results to the screen. Naturally, there are also issues, which needs to be thought to ensure the smooth process. First of all these are locations of cameras in forest, because they must be connected with transmission trucks by cables and thus located nearby arena, Sufficient energy supply by diesel aggregates is not easy task and organizers must be aware of exact keeping of the time schedule, acceptable length of the TV shot, no idle times etc.
Before WOC itself, another test is in programme, with live coverage of Czech Championship in sprint, which will take place in Prague on 21 June 2007.