In July 2021, to everyone's surprise, it was announced that the free-to-air and pay TV rights for the 2022 FIFA World Cup for French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa had been awarded to a Togolese company that was virtually unknown until then: New World TV.
A year later, New World TV, whose emergence has since aroused the curiosity of many media outlets such as Le Monde and Financial Afrik, began marketing these rights to free-to-air television channels, i.e., those that are still available on analog and free on DTT.
In Togo, New World publishes and distributes eight television channels, which will of course broadcast all 64 matches of the 2022 World Cup on pay TV. In Côte d'Ivoire, NCI, the new Ivorian channel launched at the end of 2019 and available on both DTT and the main distribution platforms (CANAL+, STARTIMES, TV d'ORANGE), will broadcast the main World Cup matches—including all those involving the three sub-Saharan African teams in the running: Senegal, Ghana, and Cameroon—live and exclusively on free-to-air television.
In Congo-Brazzaville, following the contract signed at the end of August in the presence of the Congolese Minister of Communication and Media, the national public channel Télé Congo will broadcast the opening and closing ceremonies of the competition, the 28 matches, and the daily 26-minute highlights included in the package sold by New World to free-to-air channels ." The stakes are already high in countries that did not qualify, given the enormous popularity of soccer among the African population. They may take on another dimension in countries where the national team qualified. In Ghana, things are simple since Multichoice obtained the rights for English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa in July 2021. Multichoice subsidiary SuperSport presented its plans for the World Cup on August 6: all 64 matches of the 2022 World Cup will be broadcast on eight HD channels and will be accompanied by replays, reports on the teams' lives, magazines, and reactions in Qatar and in the countries participating in the competition.
However, in Senegal, which recently won the Africa Cup of Nations, there is a major imbroglio involving financial interests and political concerns: on June 24, 2022, E-media announced that it had acquired the free-to-air rights to the World Cup from New World TV. However, on August 18, RTS announced that it had, with the support of the Senegalese government, acquired the same rights, prompting an immediate reaction from E-media, which considers itself to still be the holder of these rights. However, it would appear that New World has confirmed that it has terminated its contract with E-media on the grounds that the latter has failed to meet its commitments. This version is, of course, disputed by E-media, which is now taking legal action while seeking the support of FIFA and possible arbitration by the Senegalese government. In Cameroon, hostilities have not yet been declared, but CRTV, which has already broadcast CAN2022, is said to be holding the upper hand. Another major uncertainty concerns pay-TV broadcasting. New World currently has only a few thousand subscribers outside Togo. Will it be able to achieve a sufficient level of broadcasting in just over three months to recoup the investments made so far? If not, selling the pay-TV rights to CANAL+, STARTIMES, or another platform could be one option. As time goes by, this scenario seems increasingly inevitable for NewWorld TV, unless it wants to lose a lot of money while depriving a large part of the population of French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa of a large number of matches.