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In a milestone media moment for women’s sports, Fox Sports is about to deliver the most expansive coverage of a FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament in history – an investment driven by the success of the U.S. national team and its pursuit of an unprecedented third consecutive victory.

From July 20 through Aug. 20, cabler Fox Sports 1 (FS1) and the Fox broadcast network will serve up more than 190 hours of live soccer programming from the tournament staged in Australia and New Zealand. The roster includes 64 matches, about half of which will air on Fox, the broadest platform for the games and for sponsors. All matches will stream live via the FS1 app. The quarterfinals, semifinals, third-place match and the big finish will all air live on Fox.

Fox Sports is also investing in pre- and post-game shows, halftime reports and other shoulder programming around the games in order to...

Updated with latest: The 6 p.m. Pt replay of Monday’s World Cup match between Portugal and Uruguay on Fox Sports 1 was missing 32 seconds of game time. At the 50:33 mark of the match, there is an abrupt cut from the players on the field to the back of an Uruguayan player’s head. At the same moment, the game clock in the upper left hand corner of the screen jumps from 50:33 to 51:04 with no explanation.

The 32 seconds in question happen to be the moment a protester took the field waving a rainbow flag and wearing a shirt with messages of support for Iranian women and Ukraine’s independence. In live footage, the protester was seen very briefly running across the bottom left of the screen as Fox Sports’ John Strong briefly noted, “Play will be stopped here [unintelligible] someone who has come onto the field.” The new...

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The World Cup kicks off Nov. 20 in Qatar, and while the event itself is surrounded by geopolitical controversy and intrigue, its TV partners in the U.S. are betting that a confluence of events (Lionel Messi’s last World Cup, the U.S. national team scoring a favorable draw) could not only bolster their bottom lines, but propel soccer fandom in the U.S., with North America set to host the event in 2026.

Fox Sports has the English-language rights, with games set to air on Fox and Fox Sports 1, while Telemundo Deportes has Spanish-language rights, with games set to air on Telemundo, Universo, and on Peacock.

Unusual timing for the event — the tournament is usually held over the summer, but Qatar’s climate necessitated a shift to November — could hinder or help each network, as they navigate NFL rights (Fox has a Sunday afternoon game,...

It’s been four long years, but the FIFA World Cup — the biggest single sporting event on the planet (3.57 billion people watched in 2018) — is ready to hit the pitch again as 32 nations battle it out. For U.S. players, the wait has been even longer, after they didn’t qualify for the last tourney in Russia. “[Now the team has a] responsibility to make us believe again,” says Hall of Famer and Fox Sports’ lead studio analyst Alexi Lalas. The excitement kicks off in Qatar on November 20. The U.S. faces Wales first on November 21 in the group stage; the Black Friday match against England promises to be immense. Leading the U.S. charge is “Captain America”— gifted forward Christian Pulisic. “He has the ideal temperament for that pressure of the world spotlight,” says Fox Sports exec producer David Neal. Tyler Adams, Yunus Musah and Brenden Aaronson are also among the names to watch. While...

Soccer’s governing body FIFA estimates that five billion people will tune in to watch the Qatar World Cup, marking a new record for a global sporting event. This will be a spectacle like no other.

The World Cup tends to put a country’s social order under the microscope. Spain, Argentina and Russia are among previous hosts whose politics has drawn opprobrium. No country has been as scrutinized as Qatar, however. Ever since FIFA made the contentious decision to award the tournament to the Gulf state, controversy has followed, posing questions for participating nations, broadcasters and sponsors.

The country was awarded the tournament 12 years ago amid allegations of corruption within the highest echelons of FIFA. Since then, that FIFA regime has fallen, and Qatar’s record around gender and LGBT+ equality has been in the spotlight. Critics have questioned not only the country’s human rights record but also...

San Francisco, Sep 1 (Ians) As robotic surgery slowly becomes mainstream, US-based robotic surgery evangelist Vattikuti Foundation on Thursday announced a unique video competition for robotic surgeons from across the world on September 10, that will be judged by an international jury form Oxford and Stanford Universities, and New-Delhi based Aiims.

The top three winning videos from about 100 entries will be announced from the fields of urology, gynaecology, general surgery, hepato-biliary-pancreatic surgery, colorectal, head and neck, paediatric and joint replacement surgeries.

The ‘Ks National Robotic Surgery Video’ competition is being organised in India since 2015 and this year, it has gone international for the first time.

“The global healthcare system has gained from Vattikuti Foundation’s library of winning videos on robotic surgery from India and we wanted to enrich this library with international experience. For the 2022 competition, the Foundation is gratified to see a four-fold increase over entries in the past”, said Dr Mahendra Bhandari,...

We have something different to share with you, TV Fanatics!

Audible launches its new original audio series, The Big Lie, today, and it has a star-studded cast.

The Big Lie marks John Mankiewicz's first podcast, and the cast is out of this world.

The Big Lie is described as an immersive, cinematic seven-part audio drama series about the making of Salt of the Earth -- the only movie named to the “Hollywood Blacklist” -- and the FBI agent – played by Jon Hamm – who tried to shut it down.

Sounds intriguing, right?

The project was created by Executive Producer John Mankiewicz, from a story by Salt producer Paul Jarrico, co-written by Jamie Napoli, directed by Aaron Lipstadt.

The Big Lie also stars Kate Mara, Ana de la Reguera, John Slattery, Bradley Whitford, Lisa Edelstein, Giancarlo Esposito, David Strathairn, and more/

Jon Hamm will also Executive Produce the series.

Audible shared...

Fox Sports, which will broadcast the 2022 World Cup in the U.S., has set the schedule for the 64 matches it will carry between November 21 and December 18.

The quadrennial tournament is being held at the end of the year because its customary mid-summer berth would create unworkably hot conditions in the host nation of Qatar. Already, the wealthy Persian Gulf state has had to erect brand-new stadiums featuring retractable roofs and temperature control due to the region’s scorching desert heat.

The Fox broadcast network and cable’s FS1 will carry the games, all of which will stream live on the Fox Sports app. On the main network, 34 out of 35 matches will be broadcast in the 10 a.m., 11 a.m. or 2 p.m. Et broadcast windows.

The U.S. Men’s National Team recently qualified for its first World Cup appearance since 2014. It will face...

Exclusive: Here’s a huge transatlantic project for you: The team behind Golden Globe-winning BBC/PBS drama Wolf Hall, including Oscar winner Mark Rylance, are reuniting to make cybersecurity series The Undeclared War for NBCUniversal streamer Peacock and UK broadcaster Channel 4.

The six-part series is written and directed by seven-time BAFTA winner Peter Kosminsky and is housed at Emmy-winning producer Colin Callender’s UK and New York-based production outfit Playground. NBCUniversal International Studios is co-producing.

Rylance, who picked his Oscar for Steven Spielberg’s Bridge Of Spies, will star alongside another of Britain’s finest exports: Mission Impossible and Shaun Of The Dead actor Simon Pegg. Other cast includes Adrian Lester (Riviera), Maisie Richardson-Sellers (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Alex Jennings (The Crown), and newcomer Hannah Khalique-Brown.

The Undeclared War takes place in the post-pandemic world of 2024 against the backdrop of an upcoming British general election involving the UK...

As David Neal surveys the view from the Fox Sports 2019 Women’s World Cup studio, he sees a thunderstorm raging over the Eiffel Tower.

The studio, located in a palatial Parisian restaurant bought out by the network for the duration of the tournament, affords its analyst occupants and viewers at home a head-to-toe view of the iconic landmark.

“Whenever an American viewer watches our studio coverage, they will be in no doubt of where we are,” says Neal, vice president of production and executive producer of the World Cup on Fox. “I have been in this business 41 years, done nine Olympics at NBC and this is my third World Cup with Fox, and it is without a doubt the most spectacular setting for a broadcast set I have seen.”

After delivering the most-watched soccer match in U.S. history at the 2015 Women’s World Cup and a somewhat disappointing men’s World Cup sans U.

John Strong is catching hell for his suit. Unaccustomed to such nice threads, he draws cat calls as he steps onto the soundstage where he and the rest of the Fox Sports men’s World Cup broadcast team are about to be photographed together. The 2018 Cup will be Fox’s first as the English-language U.S. broadcaster. To illustrate the change, Fox’s PR pros plotted a promotional photo shoot a bit different from what sports broadcasters are used to — with the men in high-end suits and the women in gowns. Most of the team seems into it. Strong doesn’t look unhappy, but he’s probably been more comfortable.

“I’m only on camera for 10 minutes every day,” he joke-complains to a publicity exec. A few feet away, former U.S. men’s national team midfielder Stu Holden is mocking Strong, walking around with his legs stiff and arms...

When the Olympics get under way today, U.S. viewers will have access to an average of 70 hours of Olympics programming per day. And with an unprecedented amount of live coverage of the Summer Games in Athens, Greece, sports that have previously been relegated to off-viewing hours or given a minimal amount of TV time will be given their share of the broadcast pie. "This is the first time ever in U.S. television history that all 28 Olympic sports will receive some coverage," says David Neal, NBC vp for the Olympics. "Nobody's come close or even attempted to come close to that in the past. This is a huge advantage, especially since we're doing it without an increase in manpower and equipment." Through six NBC Universal-owned networks -- NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, USA and Telemundo -- plus the NBC high-definition platform, that is more coverage than what was produced in total for each Olympics until ABC delivered 76.5 hours for the Montreal Summer Games in 1976. The round-the-clock programming adding up to more than 1,200 hours surpasses the total offered by the past five Summer Games combined -- Sydney, Atlanta, Barcelona, Spain, Seoul, South Korea, and Los Angeles.