Paris, 24 March 2004 – Leading satellite services company, GlobeCast, today announces that it has partnered with Brazilian telecommunications group, Embratel, to provide contribution broadcast services, internet and telephony for Brazilian terrestrial broadcaster, TV Globo for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.
GlobeCast will also be working closely with four additional official Olympic Broadcasting rights holders, ATV and TVB in Hong Kong and Japanese channels, TV Asahi and Fuji TV, to provide specifically tailored packages including satellite transmissions and SNG services, for the duration of the games.
GlobeCast’s services for rights holders form part of the company’s comprehensive presence at the Athens Olympics. GlobeCast is offering extensive facilities for non-rights holding broadcasters, a number of which have already contracted with GlobeCast for their Olympics coverage, through its Broadcast Base formed in association with UK-based Gearhouse Broadcast and Athens-based Stefi Productions. The Broadcast Base offers non-rights holders a one-stop-shop for all of their production and broadcast requirements, including studios, work space, broadcast equipment, worldwide satellite transmissions, uplinking facilities, playout, conversion, encoding and mobile SNG facilities.
TV Globo will be providing Brazil with national terrestrial coverage of the 24th Olympic Games, and will be using GlobeCast and partner Embratel to manage its contribution delivery, via Intelsat satellites, from the Official International Broadcasting Centre. GlobeCast will be supplying a complete suite of transmission services including multiple two-way satellite and fibre paths from Athens, and two dedicated SNG vehicles for sports and news coverage from around the city.
For Hong Kong’s two Olympic broadcast rights holders, GlobeCast will provide six satellite channels with encoding equipment, uplinks and compression for free-to-air ATV and a satellite uplink for TVB.
Japanese rights holders TV Asahi and Fuji TV have signed an agreement with GlobeCast to secure the use of one SNG vehicle each, complete with camera crew for the duration of the Games. This will enable both stations to film live stand ups and report on human interest stories from around the city of Athens.
Graham Smith, Head of European Sports, GlobeCast said: ‘Our reputation for understanding the individual broadcast needs of national stations at major sporting events, and our ability to provide comprehensive tailored services has enabled us to offer our most extensive package to broadcasters at Athens 2004. Our relationship with many broadcasters, such as TV Globo, was established at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 where our Broadcast Base was used by numerous international broadcasters which have already signed up to work with us again. As a result of our continued commitment, industry experience and service levels we have been able to work with our clients to extend our offering to an increasing number of broadcasters looking to present complete and seamless sports coverage to their national home audiences.’
Press Contacts:
Lucy Smith lucy.smith@globecast.com +33 1 55 95 26 10
Caroline Ponsi caroline.ponsi@francetelecom.com +33 1 44 44 93 93
UK Press Contacts (ing Media):
Fred Slezak fred@ing-media.com +44 20 7247 8334
Donna Coyle donna@ing-media.com +44 20 7247 8334