Paralympic Coverage Surpasses Previous Showing

“It is a thrill to see the audience that we will be reaching with the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games. With over 1,000 hours of coverage, this is by far the largest broadcast of Paralympic Sport, and I welcome each and every viewer to take advantage of this opportunity to witness these exciting Paralympic Games”

“It is a thrill to see the audience that we will be reaching with the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games. With over 1,000 hours of coverage, this is by far the largest broadcast of Paralympic Sport, and I welcome each and every viewer to take advantage of this opportunity to witness these exciting Paralympic Games”, said Sir Philip Craven, IPC President.

BBC Television in Great Britain will have live coverage from the Opening/Closing Ceremonies and at weekends on BBC1/2 . During the week the live coverage is on Interactive and highlights will be shown on BBC 2. In more detail, the Athletics, Swimming, Wheelchair Basketball and Equestrian competition will each have a camera designated for the sporting event, along with either a commentary position or a reporter.

Both Chinese broadcasters will include two different channels in their displaying of the events.CCTV will broadcast ten hours each day throughout the Paralympics. BTV is planning to cover the Games from 8:00-22:30, 6 to 17 September on their BTV-6 station. This will have live and replayed events, news and features.

In Canada, CBC Sports will be actively working with their CBC French and English broadcasts for the Games. The CBC English station will have two hours in the afternoon on 6, 7, 13 and 14 September. The CBC French station will show two hours also in the afternoon on 20 and 21 September.

In Brazil, the SPORTV Channel will have each day ten hours of live competition, and six 30-minutes programmes. In addition to showing these events and the Opening Ceremony on SPORTV, Brazil will have coverage in the form or news and sports programmes on its other eight channels.

Japan’s NHK Production will have a daily highlight programme shown, in addition to a 50-minutes documentary produced that will focus on the competition side of the Paralympics When the Games have finished, NHK plans on combining all the acquired material and re-edit it into another documentary. The 80-minute piece will be titled, “Glory of Beijing Paralympics 2008”.

In Spain, RTVE and the Spanish Paralympic Committee have agreed to offer over 100 hours of Games coverage through several channels that are part of the TV Corporation. This will be similar to what was offered during ATHENS 2004. The coverage this year will include daily broadcasting of two one-hour programmes on TV2 and Teledeporte, one of them being the highlights of the day. A ten-minute, daily programme special will also be part of the schedule on TV2, with additional specials on TVE, RNE and rtve.es. Teledeporte hopes to have as much live broadcasting as possible, focusing on Spanish athletes in Athletics, Swimming and Cycling.

Australia will offer over 100 hours of live and highlights across the major channels of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The broadcaster plans on showing eight hours of daily live coverage on ABC2 and two, one-hour daily highlight packages on ABC1.

In South Africa, the major broadcasting station SABC will be showing live coverage of the Games each day, including the Opening Ceremony on their SABC2 channel. Additionally, the channel will have a delayed run of the Closing Ceremony.

In Germany, broadcasters will also be extensively showing the Games throughout the entire event, including Opening and Closing Ceremony. Prominent channels ARD and ZDF will take over the majority of broadcasting, with live coverage each day on its analogue and digital channels.

Adding on to that, Eurosport will also be including live broadcasts in their channel’s respective programming.

Furthermore, more than 32 European Broadcasting Union (EBU ) members committed to cover the Beijing 2008 Paralympics from China.

For those fans of the Paralympic Games who do not live within the territories of the rightsholding broadcasters, there will be coverage available on www.ParalympicSport.TV, the IPC’s internet TV channel. Daily news and highlight shows will be offered on demand as well as live coverage wherever possible. More than 150 hours of Paralympic sports are already available on the channel, 24/7 free of charge, all over the world. Additionally, daily news will also be shown on the YouTube channel of ParalympicSport.TV at www.youtube.com/ParalympicSportTV. Fans of Paralympic Sport can also join the group "Your Paralympic Moment" and upload video clips of their special Paralympic Moment. The best clips will be released on ParalympicSport.TV after the Games.