Swedish Match Tour’s TV player upgraded

by Sean McNeill on 16 Jun 2005 The Swedish Match Tour’s broadband television channel has been redesigned and updated with new features and greater functionality to further enhance the viewing experience.

The channel, www.SwedishMatchTour.tv, broadcasts on demand all television programs of the Swedish Match Tour, and has been available free of charge since last year. Viewers can watch the rolling 24-hour TV schedule, or search the highlights section to find a specific program, either from the current TV series or a previous show, wherever they want, and whenever they want to watch it.

The Swedish Match Tour contracts Sportshows Television (London, England) the film production arm of Narrowstep Inc. (USA), to produce and distribute the Tour’s television shows. Sportshows Television has been commissioned this year to produce 10 one hour TV programs that will be distributed throughout 100 countries around the world. The broadband TV player is a unique product of Narrowstep.

‘Broadcasting these shows on broadband TV and making them available globally on demand, rather than restricting the shows by territory, is the way of the future,’ said Cliff Webb, Chief Operating Officer of Narrowstep. ‘And the Swedish Match Tour is leading the way.’

In the month of May, which featured Tour events in Italy, Germany and Croatia, the TV player served almost 64 days of viewing time to more than 1,500 people. Since January the player has served more than 226 days of viewing time to nearly 5,000 viewers.

’We’ve seen a continual increase in the interest of viewers each month, with people from over 55 countries actively watching the channel. The sailing community is tightly knit, and I am sure the word will spread about the advantages the new style player offers,’ Webb said.

The player has been upgraded to include pause, fast forward and rewind options. There are three different viewing modes, small, normal and full screen, and there’s an option to mute the sound. All content is available at different data rates with a maximum of 1.8mb for premium viewing quality.

The full schedule for the day’s programming is listed, and individual shows may be chosen to view on demand. The list of shows includes all events from the current 2004-’05 season and most from the 2003-’04 season. There are also special interviews, news updates and music montages under ‘Highlights.’

Also, the Tour’s DVD shop is online, where you can purchase DVD copies of last year’s shows. The DVD shop should appear in a separate window behind the TV player when it is launched, or you can access it here: http://storeserver.narrowstep.tv/storeserver/smt/Default.aspx.

Later in the year there are plans for live broadcasts exclusively on Swedish Match Tour TV. Viewers will be able to see the racing in real time with a multi-camera shoot from on board the race boat.

Swedish Match Tour partners include Swedish Match, BMW and the Match Race Association. Swedish Match Tour Official Sponsors include Musto, Sebago, Travel Places, Trident Studio and Wedgwood.

For more information on the Swedish Match Tour, its competitors and events, please visit the official Tour Web site, www.swedishmatchtour.com. Swedish Match Tour television programs may be viewed by clicking on the Tour television button on the home page of the Web site.