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22 January 2009 week 04 The Handball World Cup How RTL Televizija produces the biggest sport event in Croatia for an international audience Luxembourg Germany Gerhard Zeiler on the The biggest vocal auditions future of the British TV of all time landscape Asia France Vietnam crowns its second Idol Groupe M6 keeps revenues almost stable week 0 COVER: Montage with Croatia’s handball player Mateo Hrvatin Th H db ll W ld C 2 week 04 the RTL Group intranet “Magic formula” RTL Televizija is the host broadcaster of Handball World Cup 2009. 24 teams competing in six Croatian cities – RTL Televizija, not yet 5 years old, the host broadcaster for this championship. Croatia - 22 January 2009 While providing pictures and sound for broad- cameras in the second part of the champions- casters worldwide since 16 January, the chan- hip, the semi-finals and the finals match. As a nel presents to his own audience 27 matches bonus, RTL Televizija is also organising public live, as well as live reports from other matches, screenings of matches played at the Split arena and special reports presenting the teams. and interesting matches from other groups in a tent at the Prokurative in Split. The topics covered in the special broadcasts are truly diverse. RTL Televizija has a great deal The offer to foreign channels includes footage to offer viewers, with information ranging from and stories from all six World Cup cities and pre-game events and mental preparation of the their arenas, national team profiles, the best handball players, to the stars of the cham- players in the world, portraits about the top pionship, national team profiles and entertain- head coaches, reviews of handball legends, ment of the handball fans. As well as live and emotional footage of the spectacular fans. reports from all the cities and arenas, where RTL Televizija’s production team is also alloca- RTL Televizija’s reporters interview fans and ting Satellite News Gathering crews, Electronic celebrities, the channel also invites Croatian News Gathering crews, editing suites, office handball legends to give their forecast for spaces equipped with computers and internet upcoming games and presents Croatia’s rising access, and live or taped play-outs to foreign handball stars. Expert commentary from the broadcasters. studio, daily shows with highlights from the tournament, and special editions of existing On the occasion of the Handball World Cup, programmes give viewers a comprehensive Ivan Lovrecek, RTL Televizija’s Editor in Chief, range of information about handball. explained the great importance of the event to Backstage. As the host broadcaster, RTL Televizija has made television production a top priority. With What importance does the Handball World the help of international experts from the sports Cup have for Croatia in general, and RTL rights agency Sportfive and the Belgian com- Televizija in particular? pany AlfaCam, RTL Televizija is using technolo- The Handball World Cup is the largest sporting gy that is not even officially available yet in event hosted by Croatia in the past 20 years Croatia. Supported by its Croatian partners and carries great national importance because Robago and Masterfilm, RTL Televizija is wor- of that. At the same time, handball is one of the king to the highest standards of television tech- most popular sports in Croatia – people love to nology, seen for the first time in handball: watch it, and our national team is one of the a total of 17 cameras are used in the transmis- best in the world. That’s why I think that the sions of the group matches and there will be 19 Handball World Cup is a magic formula for suc- 3 week 04 the RTL Group intranet cess: the entire country has an opportunity to present itself to the world as a host and a glo- bal force in handball. That’s exactly where RTL Televizija found its spot in this project. Our task as host broadcaster is to transmit great hand- ball games, and the fantastic atmosphere which follows them, to the world from six Croatian cities – Osijek, Varazdin, Porec, Split, Zadar and capital city of Zagreb. In this way, RTL Televizija also shows that it’s ready to take on major television projects, as borne out by the excellent ratings earned. What challenges does RTL Televizija face as host broadcaster? We have had months of hard work preparing for the project and the programming we want to offer to viewers during the 16 days of the championship. It was very important to us to Ivan Lovrecek, Editor in Chief, RTL Televizija meet extremely high production standards for the World Handball Championship broadcasts. Producing such an event is a very complex undertaking and we had to be completely sure that everything goes well. Now that the cham- pionship has begun I can say we are succee- ding at that. I’m extremely proud of the team we have gathered around the project – we have the best people, who have invested enormous energy into the Handball World Cup project. What impact do you personally expect from the Handball World Cup? I expect that the final match will feature Croatia and Germany and that we will set a new audience record in Croatia with that broadcast, and the broadcast will also set a new record in terms of number of people watching handball around the world! But what’s most important to me is that we show our viewers a whole new dimension of sports events broadcasting during this World Handball Championship. Our task is to communicate the strong emotions of the handball players and fans in Croatian cities and arenas. Emotions are the reason why peo- ple love watching sports so much. If viewers following this championship on television expe- rience emotions close to those of the fans in the arenas, we will have done an excellent job. 4 week 04 the RTL Group intranet Handball World Cup coverage in Germany Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland has acquired the exclusive Free TV rights to Germany to the World Cup and will be broadcasting handball to various platforms: During the Handball World Cup until 1 February 2009, RTL Television’s viewers are treated to live broadcasts of all matches featuring the German national team, plus the final, including comprehensive advance and follow-up coverage. The matches are scheduled to be broadcast in access prime time at 17:30. RTL Television is broadcasting the games using the “Worldfeed” provided by RTL Televizija and the sports rights marketer Sportfive. Additionally, RTL Television uses extra cameras and analysis procedures for the previews and follow-up reporting. A Spidercam – a camera system involving ropes that allow the camera to move freely through space in the arena, both along and above the playing field – is used for the first time in handball. For instance, the rapid pace of fastbreaks can be documented from this dynamic bird’s-eye view. The Antelope, a high-speed super-slow motion camera that cap- tures around 250 images per second, also made its handball debut, slowing down the real speed of scenes from the game. “We’re not exactly reinventing handball reporting, but will set innovative accents in the presentation of the games and their analysis, as we have done for other sports in the past,” promises Manfred Loppe, Head of RTL Television’s sports broadcasting. Meanwhile, N-TV reports directly from Croatia and provide match summaries after each encounter played by the German national team. In addition, every morning beginning at approximately 7:15 the Sport Spezial – Handball Frühstück provides hourly background reports, interviews and analyses until noon. Until 1 February 2009, all handball matches involving the German team, as well as the final, are available as live-stream videos on RTL.de. Both RTL.de and Sport.de are running a Handball World Cup special. Clipfish.de has set up a separate Handball World Cup channel, and N-TV.de is serving up a three-week special with the latest summary tables and news sto- ries related to the handball tournament. The RTL Mobil portal treats handball fans to an extensive mobile handball special featur- ing a live ticker, user polls, mobile downloads, team por- traits and a quiz. The German national handball team shooting a trailer for RTL Television 5 week 04 the RTL Group intranet Gerhard Zeiler on the future of the British TV landscape On 19 January, the Financial Times ran an editorial by RTL Group CEO Gerhard Zeiler. In it, Zeiler talked about the future of public broadcasting in Britain and argued for a merger between Channel 4 and Five. Gerhard Zeiler Luxembourg - 19 January 2009 The United Kingdom has a strong tradition of between Channel 4 and Five,” public-service broadcasting. In addition to the arguing that joint projects – or publicly funded BBC there is also Channel 4, a ‘Public Private Partnerships’ – state-owned commercial public service broad- are being forged in many sec- caster, as well as the two commercial broad- tors. “If the government can be Read the full casters ITV and Five, which also have signifi- a main shareholder in several of editorial on cant public-service obligations imposed as part the leading banks, why would it of their licence to broadcast. not consider a public/private Backstage partnership in broadcasting?” In Five and Channel 4 are similar in many ways, an interview with the FT, Zeiler also writes Zeiler in the Financial Times, and lists the made it clear that Britain’s government shared characteristics: both are funded by would own the majority in such a possible advertising, both commission programmes joint venture. “The whole point of it is to run it from outside producers rather than making as efficiently as possible with at least as much them in-house and both are reliant on a mix of PSB programming as now, if not more, without home-grown and acquired programming.

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