'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go - TV's World Cup party is back
Love it or loathe it, Cable TV's 'carnival-style' coverage of the soccer World Cup finals is returning to our screens - and this time it will be even bigger.
Every night from June 9 to July 9, 500 studio guests will be invited to a live World Cup Carnival pre-game show at the International Trade and Exhibition Centre in Kowloon Bay. Actor and radio host Chapman To Man-chak will host the programme.
'We are following the success of 2002 and this year the show will be a bigger one,' said Samuel Tsang, project manager of Cable TV's World Cup organising committee.
The channel, which has the sole Hong Kong broadcasting rights to the 32-team finals - being staged this year by Germany - drew howls of outrage four years ago from non-native viewers. They condemned the coverage, saying it was noisy and unprofessional.
Mr Tsang said local viewers favoured the arrangement, but the carnival should bring enjoyment to all sports fans no matter they were local or foreign.
'From the business perspective, we serve our local viewer first. But all the live matches are carried with professional English commentaries, as our live feed is directly coming from the official Fifa programme,' Mr Tsang said.
Cable TV will also carry information about betting on matches at the World Cup finals for the first time.
The broadcaster will send a four-man team to go around the World Cup finalists in 80 days - touring each of the countries sending a team to the tournament.
Mr Tsang said the broadcaster had achieved double-digit growth in advertising and sponsorship revenue for its World Cup coverage compared with four years ago.
He said the company would negotiate with local free-to-air broadcasters TVB and ATV to carry matches from the tournament's closing stages, but no deals had been struck yet for terrestrial channels to show them.
