South African public broadcaster SABC is urging all citizens to support the South African teams involved in the Cricket ICC Champions Trophy 2013 tournament, the Rugby Championship, as well as the Castle Lager Inbound Test Series, featuring the Springboks and taking place from 8 until 22 June, as well as the FIFA 2013 Confederation Cup from 15 June.
This forms part of the SABC’s “Get Behind The Boys’ campaign. The SABC is ensuring that the matches are broadcast on SABC platforms and are accessible to all South Africans.
An SABC statement released on 13 June reads: “We are a without a doubt a sport loving nation, and therefore it is the SABC’s duty to make sure that not only does the public get access to their favourite sports, but is also given a platform to celebrate their heroes in various sport codes.’
For the Cricket’s ICC Champions tournament, the SABC will broadcast live all three matches of the Proteas in the group stage, as well as one semi-final and the final match live. The SABC will have specific television programming, which will feature daily highlights of all the other matches in the tournament. SABC radio station, 2000 FM will carry all the cricket matches live, with updates and scores on other SABC ALS radio stations.
The SABC will broadcast all the Rugby tournament matches on radio and television. As per the sub-licensing deal with SuperSport, the SABC is allowed to broadcast delayed matches after the final whistle and to provide live coverage on radio. This applies to the South African inbound tests only. SABC’s coverage will complement the gaining popularity of rugby across all demographics, capturing the imagination of rugby viewers and attracting new fans. SABC2 is the home of rugby.
Regarding the FIFA 2013 Confederations Cup, the opening ceremony and all 16 matches will be broadcast live on SABC1 with SABC3 carrying matches when there are simultaneous kick-off times. The matches will take place at five different venues in Brazil and the broadcast time will be from 21h00 – 23h00 or 00h00 – 02h00, depending on the venue. The final will take place in Rio de Janeiro at 23h00. Apart from covering all matches live, SABC aims to: deliver exclusive behind-the-scenes activities in Brazil; deliver world-class sports news reporting, match analysis and match commentary; deliver consistent world-class production standards; and present a television production that provides viewers with the best that this event has to offer.
The scheduling on radio is informed by the fact that soccer fits in with the audience profiles of 2000 FM and all the 9 ALS platforms, including SA FM, Lotus FM and X-K FM. Given the investment that the SABC made in the past years on the rest of the vernacular stations, soccer (local and international) has proven to be one of the key audience drivers. All 9 ALS platforms including 2000 FM will form the backbone of commentary by bringing all the 2013 Confederation Cup matches in their vernacular and English languages. SAfm and Tru FM will do live reports. Audiences will be able to participate in these conversations by using the Twitter #SABCbtb.
For further information on all SABC sporting events go to: SABC Marketing Twitter Handle: @SABCPortal
SABC Marketing Facebook Account: SABC (https://www.facebook.com/SABCPortal)
SABC Marketing YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/sabc
