MUMBAI: The International Archery Federation (FITA) has announced that due to the Meteksan Archery World Cup and the Field World Championships an estimated 900 million people watched Archery on television in 2006.

Fita has produced and distributed through the EBU newscast and 26 or 52 minutes highlights on each event, i.e. the four World Cup stages, the World Cup Final at the Mayapan pyramids and the Field World Championships in Göteborg. The Final was also broadcast live.

The main TV channels that showed archery include ESPN Star Asia, Eurosport, Fox International, Sport+, Zee Sport, RAI, RTR Russia, TRT or CCTV.

The global cumulative audience is calculated so far in 2006:
- With news coverage : 565 million viewers
- With live, highlights or features : 324 million viewers
- Total :889 million viewers

With the year-end programming, the audience should reach 900 million.

This has been a successful come-back for Archery on television with the success of the new World Cup. Fita has set up its own Fita TV with the company HTR in Geneva for the live, the highlights and the newscast, which have reached about 100 territories. Moreover, Gillette World Sport, Sports Unlimited and Trans World Sport have broadcast feature stories on each event. The archery TV images were most watched in Asia and Europe, especially in India, China, Russia, Italy, Turkey and France, says Fita.