The World is Watching

The tenth edition of the unique biennial ocean challenge that is the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, is set to attract its largest global audience to date.

Take the world’s biggest matched fleet of large ocean racing yachts, crew them with hundreds of competently trained teams of amateur competitors from all walks of life under the command of professional skippers, and set them on the longest race around the planet at more than 40,000 nautical miles – taking almost a year to complete a series of 14 races between six continents, and you have a compelling human story of endeavour and endurance that is engaging international media and their audiences at an unprecedented level.

The opening salvo, as the Clipper 2015-16 Race got underway at the end of August, reached over 125 countries including race destination markets such as the UK, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Vietnam, China, USA, Panama and the Netherlands, plus France and Canada following skippers and crew in big numbers and many, many, more.

In addition to major national press, radio and TV coverage of the start from London in the UK, a live insert and package into NBC’s Today Weekend show reached millions of viewers across the US. Agencies such as AFP carried our live web stream and others such as SNTV, Reuters and Eurovision are carrying regular race reports compiled by our host broadcaster 1080 Media TV and sports news distributor ITN Productions.

Major TV channels in SE Asia, Vietnam, South Korea and China have been following crew and team stories from their part of the world with record numbers of Asian crew participating in this edition; Beijing TV Documentary Channel has a producer/director cameraman aboard the Qingdao yacht to make an exclusive Chinese language TV series.

Online, major news channels such as BBC, ITV, CNN and NBC headlined the start and are featuring crew stories; there were half a million page views on our website alone for the race start and tens of thousands tuned into our 3-hour live webcast of the opening ceremony and parade on the River Thames in London from Tower Bridge to the start.

On social media, Twitter, Periscope, Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin and Instagram have been buzzing with discussions and news. And as the tragic events of the fatal incident aboard IchorCoal unfolded we responded with a statement and timely updates online and liaised with and responded to requests for information from the world’s media. All press reports were factually accurately and sensitively compiled from the information and resources we provided.

As the focus returns to racing this week the new bespoke Race Viewer created compelling and addictive viewing with hourly updates to position, speed, wind, sea state and temperatures as the fleet split into smaller groups, inshore and offshore routes around the Canary Islands, along the African coast and into the Trade Winds, Cape Verde Islands, excitement around the first Scoring Gate and the new Doldrums Corridor. Next will be the colourful Equator crossing ceremonies.

A rich mixture of photography and video is flowing back together with crew blogs and skipper reports. All the teams are constantly updating their web pages and we’re sharing it all on our social channels.

The new weekly race news review is being distributed to sports TV desks worldwide with a You Tube version posted too. You can view this week’s update here (Week 3 - 16 September 2015): https://youtu.be/3ZPcssEUGQc

And if you want to catch the two TV series we produced during the last edition of the Clipper Race they are being repeated on international TV at the moment and are also available on DVD. We’ve published some excerpts on our You Tube channel too: www.YouTube.com/ClipperRTW

The 2013-14 edition of our sports TV series Clipper Round the World is currently airing on Sky Sports channels every Wednesday at 9pm with numerous repeats throughout the week within their Watersports World hour. This is also airing on the following channels around the world. Please check local listings for times:

FOX Asia – reaching over 25 million homes in 48 countries, including Fox Sports 2 in Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei and STAR Sports in China and Korea; plus Fox Sports/Foxtel in Australia reaching over 8-million homes. The sports series is also airing on MNET/SuperSport reaching over 25 million homes in 48 African countries including South Africa; TV3 in Portugal and within the ‘Hotwater’ strand on Nautical Channel reaching over 20 million subscribers in 44 countries in English, French, Russian, and German. (It is on over one hundred international pay TV, satellite, subscriber IpTV, mobile phone, Digital Terrestrial, MMDS and cable TV platforms)

From October it will also be airing within Deep Blue on Globosat – Brazil, Spanish language POP TV – USA, RBC TV – Russia, China New Media, Sport TV – Slovenia, Media Prima – Malaysia, True Visions – Thailand, DMTV – UAE and Mauritius Broadcasting.

In addition from October within Action Sports World on Viettel in Vietnam, Sport 1 – Germany, Edge Sport – Pan Asia/Australia; Ananey/Ego Channel – Israel and video-on-demand channels Leonardo TV in Italy and Filmbox Action in Poland/Eastern Europe.

1080 Media TV has been reappointed as the Official Host TV Broadaster coordinating all our video production and distribution. They are building on our global TV distribution with more channels taking our weekly news packages and Fox Sports has already signed up to the new Race of Their Lives TV series of seven one-hour shows of the 2015-16 edition in their Australian, Middle Eastern and European territories. More deals will be revealed soon and the Clipper Race TV team will be showcasing the new sports news output and adventure sports series next month at Sportel Monaco: the world sports TV market and convention.

“It’s been a busy yet rewarding time for our digital media, PR and TV teams over the last few weeks,” explained Global Business and Communications Director Jonathan Levy, who is also executive producer of all the Clipper Race television output. “We reached record numbers of people in the 2013-14 series of the race and look set to grow our audience even further in this landmark tenth edition: We reached a unique global audience base of more than 900 million people, with over 7,500 items, creating more than four-billion opportunities to see Clipper Race press, broadcast and online coverage; we anticipate exceeding this substantially.”

(Source for audience reach – Kantar Media)