RAI, Sky Italia outline extensive World Cup coverage
With the World Cup getting underway this week, Sky Italia has confirmed that it will air all 64 games, 39 exclusively, live and in HD. Four dedicated channels and the Sky Sport24 HD service are among the components of Sky Italia’s highly comprehensive coverage.
The offer is completed by Sky Go – which allows viewing from PCs, tablets and smartphones – Sky Online and www.skysporthd.it, featuring links, interviews and reporter contributions.
Masterminded from two control rooms, located in Milan and Copacabana, the Sky operation will place more emphasis than ever before on delivering a social championship, characterised by a continuous stream of images, tweets, insights and news.
The broadcaster will make extensive use of an ultra-slow motion camera developed by I-Movix, whilst the Mosaic Interactive High Definition screen will allow subscribers to personalise their viewing experience with four windows, a wealth of live content and a collection of ‘global goals’.
Sky will also utilise the ‘blackboard’ technique already employed for Serie A coverage, which lends three-dimensionality to the coverage thanks to Vizrt’s Free Virtual Presenter system, wherein the commentator on the pitch interacts with the player to analyse the action and provide the point of view of those out in the field.
The RAI operation
Italian national public broadcaster RAI, meanwhile, is pursuing a specific editorial line that involves TV, radio and web coverage. Under the direction of Mauro Mazza, assisted by Eugenio De Paoli, RAI will broadcast 25 matches live and exclusively free to air in HD on Rai Uno. Ample space will be given to the remaining 39 games (which are exclusively live on Sky Sports) through detailed summaries of all the key moments of the matches. Programmes covering these games will include Dribbling Mondiale (RAI Due), Diario Mondiale (RAI Due), Notti Mondiale (RAI Uno) and Mondiale Replay (RAI Uno).
RAISPORT1 is the dedicated channel with programming devoted to the entire world event. Great energies have been invested here, too, and the ‘official’ World Cup schedule will commence at 08.00 with Rassegna Stampa and Tg Sport. Subsequent programmes will include Talk Mondiale, featuring interviews and reports from the teams’ training camps; Diretta Azzurra, devoted to the Italian national team with the latest insight from the training camp; and, late in the evening, Memorie Mondiali reflecting on the history of the World Cup.