World Cup 2010 | TVNZ and Sky Confirm Sports TV Deal

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News Asia (DBVNA) e-mail inbox on October 10 received the official notice that the two New Zealand rivals, pay-TV operator, SKY Television and national broadcaster, TVNZ are linking up for the third time over World Cup Soccer, this time in 2010. This will be under a programming sub-contract agreement with Australasian rights holder, SBS. The deal is split thus: SKY NZ will provide full LIVE coverage from hosts, South Africa. The coverage includes also all the FIFA events leading up to the 2010 World Cup, including the Women's Under 17 World Cup which is being hosted in New Zealand later this month (October 2008) with SKY as the "host broadcaster" for the event. Every match in the Women's Under 17s will screen live on SKY with TVNZ showing the NZ games and the final delayed. Further events include the Women's Under 20 World Cup upcoming in November (including the NZ Under 20 team), and the Men's Under 17 and Under 20 World Cup events, along with the Confederations Cup through 2009, and the Women's Under 17 and Under 20 events in 2010. The SKY NZ/TVNZ rivals trumpet the World Cup deal as ensuring comprehensive (nigh on complete) coverage for New Zealand TV viewers. TVNZ's part of the programming pie will include eleven LIVE matches on TV ONE during the 2010 World Cup, plus daily highlights from all other games.   The prized 11 live games will be The Opening Match, then 4 matches from Round 2, 2 of the 4 quarter finals, both Semi's, the Final and the runner up 3rd and 4th Place event. TVNZ coverage does not end there. The 11 Games above will be re-run on the TVNZ Sport Extra channel on the Freeview platform, as well as LIVE coverage of an additional eleven games and highlights packages from all other matches.   DBVNA can't believe it. In the world of political niceties, FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke positively 'enthused' over the New Zealand deal describing TVNZ and SKY NZ as "absolute leading broadcasters in New Zealand". Actually, who else could take on World Cup in the country? The two are the only TV players anyway with the resources (Sky also owns Prime TV) in the relatively small NZ market.