SF-Sport: In the race for viewers and broadcasting rights
Swiss Television (SF) shows up to three hours of sport every day. Four editorial teams with over 100 employees are responsible for this.
Swiss Television (SF) shows up to three hours of sport every day. Four editorial teams with over 100 employees are responsible for this, reporting on 60 different types of sport. Last year, the journalists worked hard to produce around 2,900 hours of live, current affairs and background reports, which were broadcast on the SF1, SF2 and SF Info channels, according to a press release. In order to be present at the important events on location, two reporting vans are deployed daily. The "Sportpanorama" on Sunday evenings reaches 466,000 viewers per week and a market share of 36 percent. The daily sports news program "Sport aktuell" is watched by an average of 184,000 viewers (market share 17%). In "Sport Live", Swiss television reports almost daily on events such as the Tour de Suisse, the Football Super and Champions Leagues, Weltklasse Zürich, the Formula 1 and Motorcycle World Championships or, in winter, the Ski World Cup and the Ice Hockey Championships. However, in order to continue to achieve top ratings such as the World Cup qualifying match between Turkey and Switzerland (market share 66.5 percent), SF-Sport must first prevail against competitors for television rights. In the coming weeks and months, contract extensions with national football (cup and national team) and ice hockey associations as well as the Swiss Football League (SFL) are on the agenda, reports the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. In addition, agreements for the broadcasting of the Champions League are to be negotiated with the European Football Association (Uefa). The situation for Euro 2008 is also still unclear.
Meanwhile, the multimedia trend has been making itself felt on the SF-Sport website for some time: During the coverage of the Winter Olympics in Turin, the site reached a peak of almost 500,000 page views on February 20 (men's giant slalom skiing, women's super-G). SF will also report extensively on the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. The channel will now broadcast all related program content in 16:9 format. Various "Live Sport" events are to follow in summer 2006, until finally in 2007 the programs "Sport aktuell" and "Sportpanorama" will also flicker across the screen in the new format.
Meanwhile, the multimedia trend has been making itself felt on the SF-Sport website for some time: During the coverage of the Winter Olympics in Turin, the site reached a peak of almost 500,000 page views on February 20 (men's giant slalom skiing, women's super-G). SF will also report extensively on the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. The channel will now broadcast all related program content in 16:9 format. Various "Live Sport" events are to follow in summer 2006, until finally in 2007 the programs "Sport aktuell" and "Sportpanorama" will also flicker across the screen in the new format.
