Channel 4, the United Kingdom’s official Paralympics broadcaster, has promised to make Paralympic athletes “household names” in its coverage of the 2012 event in London.
BBC.com reports that Channel 4 will show at least 150 hours of live coverage and has promised to spend £500,000 (US $776,663) finding and training people with disabilities to host its coverage. Channel 4 will show a series of programs designed to raise the Games’ profile, including a ten-week magazine program called That Paralympic Show.
“This is a big job to do,” Channel 4’s acting chief creative officer, Julian Bellamy, was quoted as saying. “Research we have done…shows that 84 percent of the British public couldn’t name a single British Paralympian-despite the fact Great Britain came second in the medals table at the Beijing Olympics.”
