MUMBAI: Intelsat, the only global satellite leader providing Olympic Games coverage since 1968, has today confirmed that it has pre-booked over 35,000 hours of programming for 50 channels for this year's Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

This represents one of the highest traffic events in the company's history, and equates to what would be almost four years of continual programming carried within a 20-day period.

Intelsat is providing all-digital transmission of the Games for many of the event's rights holders, using six satellites from its global fleet covering every ocean region.

The Intelsat system is carrying Olympic footage from Athens to North America, Asia and South America for a number of premier customers, including CCTV in China and GlobeCast, a leading international provider of satellite transmission and production services for professional broadcast customers. GlobeCast will utilise Intelsat capacity to offer high-quality services to ATV Hong Kong, TV Globo, Brazil, TVB Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei Broadcast Pool. OTE, the national telecom provider of Greece, will use the Intelsat system to provide occasional use services to its customers in Europe. Intelsat-carried Olympic images will be broadcast to a potential viewing audience of over 3 billion people.

"Reliability is the most important aspect of providing coverage of the Olympic Games to our clients' viewing audiences," said Graham Smith, head of Sport for Europe at GlobeCast. "We are utilising Intelsat satellites to deliver this content and we're confident that during this exciting event our clients' programming will benefit from Intelsat's experience and reputation for unmatched satellite service."

"The Olympics is arguably one of the most important events for bringing the people of the world together, and Intelsat is proud to play a key role in making that happen by enabling quality video distribution around the globe," said Intelsat, COO, Ramu Potarazu.