The BBC is to make its television coverage of World Cup football available online to users in the UK. Broadband users will also be able to watch streams of live tennis action from up to five courts at Wimbledon for the first time.
The BBC World Cup television coverage will be available as broadband video streams for viewing online. There will also be separate audio streams providing the radio commentary. Match coverage will start with Germany against Costa Rica on Friday 9 June.
In addition to those matches to which the BBC has exclusive rights in the UK, it will also have the rights to highlights from all 64 matches, which will be available to view online on demand. The BBC has also acquired broadband rights to the World Cup in 2010 and 2014.
The BBC has made a growing commitment to broadband coverage since the Athens Olympics in 2004, when it made its interactive television streams available online.
Our audiences now expect to get BBC Sport on television, on radio and online and the World Cup on broadband is our biggest commitment yet to bringing people major events where and when they want them, said Roger Mosey, director of sport at the BBC. We know a lot of online viewing is done in the office, so we suspect this will allow people both to do their job and to keep up with the very latest action from Germany.
Comprehensive video coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships will also be available online, as for the first time broadband users in the UK will have access to action from up to five courts of live tennis. The service will replicate coverage on television, including the interactive television feeds.
Packages of three-minute highlights will also be available to an international audience. Wimbledon coverage begins on Monday 26 June.
The broadband coverage of the World Cup and Wimbledon will complement interactive television services on satellite, terrestrial and cable television, featuring additional audio and video streams.
The BBC will also for the first time provide high-definition television coverage of both events as part of its BBC HD trial, available to satellite and cable viewers with the appropriate equipment and as part of a limited test service on terrestrial television in the London area.
BBC Guide transmission: h*tp://aeltc.wimbledon.org/en_GB/about/tvschedule/tv_bbc.html
