IMG Media: 2014 will be a special year for TV ad sales

2014 will be a special year for TV ad sales. IMG Media, company that handles broadcasting rights and distribution of sporting and entertainment events, has high expectations for the Winter Olympic Games and the World Cup, among other events.“The coming years will be very important for the region, and in particular for Brazil, with the arrival of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. We are already working on the Sochi Winter Olympic Games,” told PRODU Félix Álvarez-Garmon, SVP for the Americas and the Caribbean of IMG Media.The company will participate in the World Cup at various levels, the main one being TV. It belongs to the Host Broadcast Services (HBS) Consortium, which produces all the World Cup broadcasts. “IMG will specifically be responsible for anything outside the 90-minutes of each match: the pre-game, half-time, and post-game shows, and parts of these will be distributed to all FIFA licensees,” he said.Álvarez-Garmon added that IMG is already working with several World Cup and Olympic Games advertisers as consultant. “We are working with pan-regional VISA on local activations across different countries, and on TV with the World Cup World Tour, which will be distributed not just to official broadcasters, but to all of those who want to take part of it,” he said.Additionally, outside the World Cup context, IMX (also part of the consortium), is responsible for the commercial activities of the Maracaná stadium for the next 30 years: sponsorships, VIP rooms, and VIP tickets, among others.