Saudi Arabia adds 4 in HDTV
August 11, 2011
By Chris Forrester
Saudi Arabia’s publicly-funded broadcaster is adding four new all-sports channels onto Arabsat. While soccer will form the backbone of the system the country’s Ministry of Information says the extra satellite capacity will permit a larger number of games to be shown simultaneously. The contract runs for at least 3 years. Saudi Arabia will then be transmitting a total of 6 sports channels.
Broadcasts will be made in HDTV and standard definition. Dr. Abdul Aziz Khoja, Minister of Culture and Information, said that the Al-Khabeer Al-Riyadhi Company has been selected to transmit the Group 1 league of the Saudi football tournament matches starting in September. The games would be captured by a sports subsidiary of giant production company Endemol.