SINGAPORE – News that national broadcaster Mediacorp

– with an announcement that it will air more than triple free-to-air matches than the last edition – has caught some analysts here by surprise.

Mediacorp’s sole acquisition this time is a shift in World Cup broadcasting trends here, with the previous tournaments in 2022 and 2018 in Qatar and Russia, respectively, shared under a three-way partnership between Mediacorp and local telcos StarHub and Singtel.