An agreement on the transmission of World Cup games on free-to-air television has been reached.

Smash TV yesterday announced that it had entered into an agreement with Melita Cable to be the free to air station that will broadcast a total of 64 World Cup games.

Contacted for comments, Member of Parliament Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who had pushed for a fair solution, said the agreement was a big step forward.

He said all the other games are expected to be transmitted with delayed coverage on the chosen free-to-air television stations. Last month, the Broadcasting Authority ruled that at least eight games have to be shown on a free-to-air television station. The BA had said that this arrangement creates “a reasonable balance between the interests of the televiewers and today’s economic realities resulting from a harsher competition in the distribution of television rights”.

Dr Pullicino Orlando said such an agreement would be fair with Melita Cable which paid hundreds of thousands of liri for the rights to transmit the World Cup matches and would also be fair with the consumers who expect to watch these matches.

Smash said that the opening game and all games from the semi-finals onwards would be shown live.

Smash said that since the BA objected to the agreement, because the station did not cover certain parts of Malta, it was launching an educational campaign to show people which direction they should point antennas in order to catch the frequency.