Canal+ to air regular UHD TV Sunday night Ligue 1 football

French pay TV operator Canal+ is to air its regular Sunday evening Ligue 1 football match slot in Ultra HD in partnership with the French football league, the Ligue de Football Professionel (LFP).

Canal+ said it would broadcast all Sunday night 21:00 Ligue 1 matches in UHD TV from the end of this month. The first match to be aired in the format will be the January 29 fixture between PSG and Monaco.

Canal+ has been working behind the scenes to lay the groundwork for the launch, evolving its production techniques and the positioning of cameras around the stadiums.

The UHD coverage of Sunday night matches will also be offered to international licensees, according to Didier Quillot, executive director-general of the LFP.

“Audiovisual is one of the priority activities of the LFP. Within the framework of our fruitful collaboration with Thierry Cheleman’s production teams, we are delighted to be able to offer to Canal+ subscribers a new technological innovation to further enliven Ligue 1. We are equally delighted to be able to offer this new experience to our international distributors and to offer to our international fans the highest quality production in the service of Ligue 1,” said Quillot.

François-Charles Bideaux, director of sport production at Canal+, said: “We have been working for a number of months to integrate the enhancements of Ultra HD into our sport production in order to plunge our subscribers into a total experience of the stadium, from their living room, better than the presidential rostrum [in the stadium] because it comes with all our editorial enrichment. The enhanced definition will allow the subscriber to choose themselves what to look at in the image, just like in the stadium.”

Thierry Cheleman, director of sports at Canal+, said that “the broadcast of matches in Ultra HD is going to offer our subscribers a new immersive experience and new sensations”.