Sky Sport to Broadcast ICC World Twenty20 Action

Media Release
17 August 2007

SKY SPORT TO BROADCAST ALL THE HARD HITTING ACTION LIVE FROM THE INAUGURAL ICC WORLD TWENTY20.

ENTERS INTO A BROADCAST PARTNERSHIP WITH ESPN STAR SPORTS FOR NEW ZEALAND.

August 17, 2007. SKY Sport is proud to announce its broadcast rights partnership with ESPN STAR Sports, Asia’s No. 1 sports broadcaster, and ICC’s global broadcast and production partner to broadcast all games LIVE from the inaugural ICC World Twenty20, held in South Africa from 12 September 2007. Covering television and new media platforms including mobile, SKY Sport would make the games available to fans in New Zealand. With the hard hitting action it creates, Twenty20 Cricket has captured the imagination of Cricket fans, and now the ICC is bringing the thrill a minute game to a world audience.

Many of the games will be prime time viewing at 8pm, with full breakfast replays and regularly updated highlights on SKY’s new Sport Highlights channel. LIVE games will screen on SKY Sport 1, 2 and 3.

SKY’s Executive Producer of Cricket, Martin Crowe, says “SKY has been one of the pioneers of the short form of the game since 1996, so to see the inaugural edition of the Twenty20 tournament live on SKY will be hugely exciting and immensely entertaining. With NZ having plenty of experience in the short form of the game over 10 years there is an anticipated expectation of our Black Caps doing very well.”

Mr Jamie Davis, Managing Director, ESPN STAR Sports, said: “We continue to develop the great game of cricket and these partnerships are a testament to our commitment. We are very pleased to have SKY Sport as our partner for New Zealand. With SKY Sport’s quality coverage and presentation, the fans in the region can look forward to witnessing the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 South Africa 2007 action in all its glory.”

SKY Sport’s Director of Programming, Kevin Cameron, says “Twenty20 is generating huge interest world-wide and SKY is delighted to bring every match from this tournament live and exclusive. As this form of the game takes just three hours, the early stages of the tournament will see 3 matches back-to-back in one day. Then assuming NZ goes through to the Super Eights, which they should, three of NZ’s first 4 games should be early morning games in South Africa, which equates to an 8pm start New Zealand time. With big hitters such as Jake Oram, Brendon McCullum and Craig McMillan in the NZ side, expect plenty of fireworks from what should be a competitive NZ side!”

12 teams will compete for the ICC World Twenty20 South Africa 2007, with games spread between three corners of the country, from Newlands in Cape Town, Kingsmead in Durban and The Wanderers in Johannesburg. The top 10 ranked teams will be joined by Kenya and Scotland, the top two associate teams from the ICC World Cricket League Division 1, held in Nairobi during February 2007.

Games begin on 11 September, with the final being held at The Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg on 24 September.

ENDS
About SKY Television
SKY Television (SKY), broadcasts in more than 44% of New Zealand homes via both UHF and DTH and is New Zealand’s pre-eminent Pay TV operator, offering a wide range of sports, movies, music, on-demand and general content across more than 80 channels. SKY’s channel line-up includes 6 sports channels, 6 movie channels, 7 general entertainment channels, 5 documentary channels, 5 news channels, 4 children’s channels, as well as other niche channels. (As of 6 June 2007, SKY had 707,255 subscribers).

SKY launched as a three-channel UHF service in 1990, with two further channels added four years later. SKY’s UHF signal reaches more than 83% of the country’s 1.5 million households. In December 1998 it launched a digital satellite service, extending its reach to the whole country. SKY also offers pay-per-view movies, live events and interactive services including Skybet, the Weather Channel, and games channels Mind Games and Playin’ TV.

With the establishment of a new on line DVD rental service and in December 2005, the launch of MY SKY, a new set top box incorporating a personal video recorder, SKY is positioned to bring New Zealand viewers even more entertainment options.

On 8 February 2006, SKY completed the purchase of the New Zealand television business of Prime Television Ltd. The acquisition of a free-to-air channel gives SKY the opportunity to showcase its channels and programmes whilst ensuring that New Zealand consumers can view delayed free-to-air sports programmes such as rugby, rugby league and cricket in primetime.

For further information, please visit SKY’s web site at www.skytv.co.nz.
About ESPN STAR Sports
ESPN STAR Sports is a 50:50 joint venture between two of the world’s leading cable and satellite broadcasters. As Asia's definitive and complete sports broadcaster and content provider, ESPN STAR Sports combines the strengths and resources of its ultimate parent companies - Walt Disney (ESPN, Inc.) and News Corporation Limited (STAR) - to deliver a diverse array of international and regional sports to viewers via its encrypted pay and free-to-air services.

ESPN STAR Sports showcases an unparalleled variety of premier live sports from around the globe to a cumulative reach of more than 310 million viewers in Asia, 24 hours a day. ESPN STAR Sports has 15 networks covering 24 countries, each localized to deliver differentiated world-class premier sports programming to Asian viewers. This includes ESPN Asia, ESPN China, ESPN India, ESPN Taiwan, ESPN Singapore, ESPN Philippines, MBC-ESPN (Korea), ESPN Hong Kong, STAR Sports Hong Kong, STAR Sports Asia, STAR Sports India, STAR Sports Taiwan, STAR Sports Southeast Asia, STAR Sports Singapore & STAR Cricket.

On the ground, the ESPN STAR Sports Event Management Group manages and promotes premier sporting events around Asia. The multi-lingual, online platforms, espnstar.com, espnstar.com.cn and espnstar.com.tw and footballcrazy.tv interact with millions of users providing them with in-depth sports news, results and competitions.

mobileESPN enables sports fans to follow their favourite sports more closely than ever with content specially delivered via their mobile phones. mobileESPN is the first of a regional suite of services to be offered across seven markets in Asia Pacific - Airtel (India), Hutch (India), Idea (India), BSNL (India), BPL Mobile (India), CSL (Hong Kong), Globe Telecom (Philippines) Maxis (Malaysia), SingTel (Singapore), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan), Telkomsel (Indonesia), StarHub (Singapore), MobileOne (Singapore), PCCW (Hong Kong), Sunday (Hong Kong) and Astro (Malaysia).

ENDS

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