Rally Sweden in race for TV coverage solution
The organisers of Rally Sweden are working around the clock to try to find funding for international television coverage of the second round of the World Rally Championship
Svenska Rally AB, the organising company, has established a deadline of midday Tuesday to conclude deals to show footage from the Karlstad-based event.
This situation arose following the FIA's decision to transfer the television rights back to individual events, in the absence of an agreement with Eurosport - which had seemed set to take over the promotion of the WRC after previous rights-holder North One Sport went into administration last month.
Rally Sweden CEO Glenn Olsson said: "Finnish company Filmworks, which has produced TV broadcasts from the WRC for five years running, is prepared to come to Sweden on short notice, but we cannot make any decisions regarding production until we have secured that the revenues are in parity with the costs."
The production firm could offer newsfeeds from every day of the event along with a daily 26-minute highlight show and a 52-minute event review show on Sunday.
The second WRC round of 2012 will be filmed and shown in Sweden by terrestrial firm SVT, but it is possible it will not be seen around the rest of the world.
ITV4 had agreed terms to broadcast the WRC in Britain, but that deal fell apart amid the North One situation.
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