Clipper Ventures, rights-holder and organiser of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, has signed its first comprehensive Chinese broadcast deal with Beijing Television (BTV).
Under the terms of the deal, BTV will follow the Chinese team in the 2015-16 Clipper Race – the 10th edition of the biennial event. The agreement is part of Clipper Ventures’ drive to develop territory specific co-production partnerships to focus on individual national teams and participants.
Clipper Ventures global business and communications director Jonathan Levy said: “It is the first time we have embarked upon a co-production of this scale to produce a comprehensive Chinese language documentary series, news, sports and online coverage about the Clipper Race which will focus on the entry from the former Beijing 2008 Olympics sailing city of Qingdao.”
BTV Documentary Channel director Chen Dali added: “We will not only have our own cameraman aboard the Qingdao yacht for the whole race but we will also have rights to access all the official race footage from a range of fixed and manned cameras on Qingdao and all the other competing boats, in addition to helicopter, on-water and land based cameras.”
BTV is available nationally on its satellite channels and online, as well as a rapidly growing cable/IPTV distribution across China.
The Clipper 2015-16 Race will start from the UK at the end of August and take six months to reach Qingdao. The race route visits ports in Brazil, South Africa, Australia and South East Asia before arriving in China.
It will then head across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of the United States, through the Panama Canal to the east coast of the USA before returning to Europe via Northern Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK.