NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS UN WEBSITE TO PROVIDE LIVE WEBCAST OF WORLD TELEVISION FORUM

Press Release

NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS UN WEBSITE TO PROVIDE LIVE WEBCAST OF WORLD TELEVISION FORUM

The United Nations website will provide a live webcast of the third United Nations World Television Forum, which will be held at Headquarters on 19 and 20 November. This will be the first live webcast of an event which will be covered by the new high-definition television (HDTV), and will be available at the following URL:

http://www.un.org/av/tvforum98

Live and archived video webcast coverage of major recent United Nations events have been available through the United Nations website. These include the General Assembly special session on the drug problem, and the general debate of the Assembly's fifty-third session. Daily webcast of the noon briefing is also provided on the United Nations website, as well as United Nations Radio news broadcasts.

In order to view the webcasts, the requirements are: a sound enabled computer, a connection to the Internet at 28.8 bps or higher speeds and the free RealPlayer software installed on the computer.

Managed, coordinated and maintained by the Department of Public Information (DPI), the United Nations website is now available in all six official languages and receives more than 2.5 million accesses every week from over 135 countries. This year, there have been a total of over 81.5 million accesses, compared to 42 million in 1997 and 11 million in 1996.

For background information on the World Television Forum see Note to Correspondents No. 5534, issued today.

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