With the reunion of Pink Floyd and Roger Waters at the London Live 8 concert just days away, we've had some more international TV broadcast details, and have news of more free tickets for the show, being given away this week, along with news of the DVD to be released.

As a sidenote, Brain Damage correspondent Bruce Tippen spoke to Nick on Sunday at the Goodwood Festival of Speed (more on that event tomorrow). Upon being asked how rehearsals were going, Nick said that they hadn't actually started them yet! Nick also made this remark to others, and the story was quickly picked up by various newspapers and other websites.

Our Live 8 broadcast info page, broken down on a country-by-country basis, has been updated with the additional coverage that we've heard about from helpful BD visitors. Obviously we welcome any additional information or corrections to the information on these pages:

Click here for international TV/radio details
Click here for BBC TV/radio/internet details

Producers of the Live 8 broadcast have said that it will be the largest global broadcast in television history, with 85% of the world's population able to tune in through a variety of media - experiencing the concerts on television, radio, online or on their mobile phones.

They estimate that more than 5.5 billion people will be able to see the live broadcast on July 2. The executive producer, Kevin Wall, said: "This monumental live broadcast is without doubt the largest global live transmission in history - spanning the entire world - and importantly will be the first to truly embrace the powerful broadband internet. Everyone talks about having something you can watch on the Internet, on TV, something you can hear on terrestrial and satellite radio, and even watch it on your cell phone - well Live 8 is making this real. Everyone in the world will have the opportunity to view and interact with this ground breaking event and collectively we will come together to have our voices heard and eliminate extreme poverty."

A few people have asked us what the schedule for the event is - what time the Floyd are appearing, and so on. As yet, this information has not been revealed; we believe it will only be announced at the end of the week, or on the day itself.

MORE FREE TICKETS
It was announced today by Bob Geldof that up to 55,000 more people will be able to watch the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park on giant screens. Space has been made available in the park to allow in thousands of fans who were unlucky in the initial text message lottery for tickets to the concert. The extra tickets will be distributed to first-comers at four ticket offices in London as well as in six locations across Britain. The tickets will be available from 3pm on Wednesday June 29, with doors closing at 7pm and reopening at 10am next morning.

The tickets, restricted to two per person, will be issued in London at the Carling Hammersmith Apollo, The Apollo Victoria, The Dominion Theatre and at Stargreen Tickets in Argyll Street. Elsewhere, tickets will be available at the Birmingham Alexandra Theatre, the Bristol Hippodrome, Cardiff International Arena, Manchester Palace Theatre, the Oxford New Theatre and at Southampton Guildhall.

"This is going to be the biggest event in Hyde Park’s history and the biggest ticketed event ever in the UK. The park will be filled to the brim. In other cities around the country and around the world, millions of people will be joining in to make poverty history," said Geldof. "It will be one of those defining moments that come around once in a generation."

The announcement followed "detailed discussions" with the Royal Parks, Westminster City Council and police, organisers said. It became clear that many thousands of fans (of all the bands playing), many from overseas, intended to travel over just to be in Hyde Park for the event, and from early stages of the preparations of the concert, the promise of extra video screens was hinted at by Geldof. This in turn was reported in many parts of the international media, giving hope to fans frustrated at the UK-only availability of conventional tickets.

"I'm not supposed to talk about this but other people tell me there are arrangements to allow hundreds of thousands more into the park on the day," Geldof said when announcing the Live 8 gigs for Johannesburg, Tokyo and Toronto.

The additional allocation this week, for collection from various UK outlets, will do nothing to help international fans who are travelling over. It will also not stop them from making the pilgrimage to Hyde Park for the momentous occasion of Roger Waters performing again with his old bandmates.

Space for the additional numbers has been allocated south of the Serpentine Lake. The finish time for the event has been extended from 8pm to 9.30pm. Hopefully, this will not cause problems with the international broadcasters who have sorted out their schedules on the basis of an 8pm finish!

DVD NEWS
EMI has beaten rival music companies by securing the DVD rights to this weekend’s Live 8 concerts after agreeing to pay several million pounds up-front to the event’s organisers, according to a report in today's UK newspaper, The Times. Naturally, a show like this sparked a frantic bidding war for the rights to produce an event DVD. EMI offered the organisers a generous cut of the profits and a large advance, which will help with the running costs of the event.

The Live 8 DVD is expected to generate greater sales than the DVD of the original Live Aid show, which sold more than a million units. It is expected to hit the shelves in November, and should be on at least two discs. Details at this point are naturally very sketchy.

Geldof said: “I hope this will be the biggest selling DVD of all time. It deserves to be. [The profits from the DVDs] will help us achieve our goal of changing the lives of the extreme poor for the better and making our generation the one that helped end the disgrace of poverty.”

More information on the show/the band's appearance will be with you as soon as we have it, with the exception of the songs which will be played, as we figure that most of you wouldn't want the surprise to be spoilt by finding out beforehand - and there also seems to be at least three versions of the set list flying around, all from various "sources".