Euro Champs massive television coverage

Helsinki 2012

The Helsinki 2012 European Athletics Championships has crossed the milestone of 1,000 hours of expected television coverage, with 38 television channels from across Europe and outside the continent expressing intentions to televise the year’s biggest athletics event ahead of London 2012.

According to the current broadcast intentions for the championships received by European Athletics there will be at least 1,075 hours of television coverage over the five days of the championships, including 957 hours of live coverage.

National broadcasters from 29 European countries will be showing the event, while, in addition, pan-European channel Eurosport plans to show the majority of the championships live across its 59 territories.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has ensured extensive coverage of the event worldwide, with all production being handled by EBU subsidiary EPC (Eurovision Production Coordination SA) in partnership with Finnish EBU Member YLE.

“The broadcast intentions show the value broadcasters attach to a European Athletics Championships,” said European Athletics President Hansjörg Wirz. “The new biennial format for the event will now give broadcasters the chance to increase the visibility of athletics even more.

“Helsinki 2012 will be the biggest athletics event of the year before the Olympics, with a broad range of European broadcasters giving the majority on the continent the chance to watch the Championships live on television.”

Outside Europe, the event will be broadcast by BandSports in Brazil, PCTV in Mexico, SuperSport in Sub-Saharan Africa, Dubai Sports Channel in the Middle East and North Africa and Eurosport Asia.

European Athletics will also stream live the Helsinki 2012 European Athletics Championships with English-language commentary at  eurovision.digotel.com/ea/index.html. The live stream will be available worldwide except for Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland and Mexico.

The European Athletics Championships is the biggest event in the European Athletics’ competition programme. A total of 1,342 athletes, including 738 male and 604 female athletes from all 50 European Athletics Member Federation countries, have entered for the 27 June to 1 July championships.

The event is supported by European Athletics’ long-standing international partners SPAR, OMEGA, LE GRUYÈRE AOC and EUROVISION, along with a number of national partners and suppliers.