With two days to go and the best yet to come in the form of semi-finals and finals, the XV AIBA World Championships have already been a resounding success in terms of television coverage all over the world, achieving unprecedented levels of exposure.

In the home market of Italy a deal was struck with digital satellite company Dahlia TV which has meant that, for the very first time, every bout has been televised live since the start. In addition, daily highlights have been available on free-to-air television as well as live coverage of the semi-finals and finals.

Elsewhere the story is even more remarkable with 68 countries so far taking the feed, and initial estimates suggesting there will be in excess of 1,000 hours of broadcasting around the world, excluding the broadcasts in Italy.

Countries and regions taking the pictures from the Mediolanum Forum include Russia, Turkey, France, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Ireland, Malta, UK (the BBC will show a one-hour highlights show on its main channel the day after the finals), North America, Puerto Rico, the Middle East, North Africa, the majority of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, China, Germany and Cuba.

David McConachie of Queensbury Media is the man responsible for selling the broadcasting rights around the world and this is the fourth time he has worked on the AIBA World Championships. "This time around every match has been filmed from the early stages, and that wasn't always the case before, when it was just the quarter-finals onwards," he explained.

"This time we offered a comprehensive package to broadcasters and a number of them said yes, we want to show as much as we can. So for example CCTV in China, which is in hundreds of millions of homes, are showing over 100 hours which is unbelievable. Turkey is showing around 120 hours. So all of a sudden in terms of worldwide TV it's been a fantastic event."

And it isn't finished yet of course. Furthermore, in addition to all the television coverage, in those markets where coverage is not available every bout of the AIBA World Championships is being streamed live, free, on www.aiba.org, the official AIBA website.