ORGANISERS of today’s network of all-star concerts expect a global audience of 2 billion people to tune in via television, radio and the internet.

The total — 500 million more than the 1.5 billion who watched Live Aid 20 years ago — is expected to be the greatest interactive entertainment event the world has experienced.

The Live 8 anti-poverty shows taking place in ten locations including London, Philadelphia, Paris, Berlin and Rome will be broadcast by 140 television stations and 400 radio stations.

In Britain millions of fans can select the international concert of their choice from the living room. Increased digital television and broadband penetration means that fans can switch between Roxy Music in Germany, Madonna in London or Destiny’s Child in Philadelphia. America Online (AOL) is running a webcast with simultaneous streams from London, Philadelphia, Berlin and Paris. Broadband users can switch between those streams at the click of a mouse or access a fifth stream with highlights from Rome and Canada, where Bryan Adams stars.

From 5pm, when the US and other international Live 8 concerts join Hyde Park, digital satellite and cable viewers will be able to select the venue they want to follow from a fiveconcert BBC multiscreen.

The red-button service will offer live coverage from London, Philadelphia, Paris, Rome and Berlin. Viewers can also see highlights from the Africa Calling Eden Project concert and events in Tokyo, Moscow and Johannesburg. The concerts may be watched in full screen or listened to as people monitor other world stages.

Kevin Wall, the executive producer of Live 8, said: “This is probably the most complex distribution and production that’s been attempted outside the Olympics and they are planned for four years.

“We’ve had to put this together in eight weeks. We are dealing in a lot of languages, we’re dealing with a lot of complexities with satellite. We are dealing withhuge complexities in terms of different directors around the world.”

A spokesman for AOL said: “This is the biggest interactive event in the history of entertainment. You will be able to see on the menu screen when your favourite act is about to play and switch venues at the click of a button.”

AOL expects substantial traffic when the on-demand footage is made available again on Monday for six weeks, allowing users to select highlights packages from all the concerts.

A deal with China to transmit the shows by broadband has given the potential audience another boost. AOL has licensed the rights to broadcast a delayed stream of the concerts to a Chinese internet media company. Chinese radio will also broadcast the shows.

The total cost of staging the ten concerts, with one further show in Edinburgh next week, is £25 million. Bob Geldof covered costs by auctioning the DVD rights in return for cash up-front from EMI and securing multi-million pound sponsorship deals with Volvo, Nokia and AOL.

Volvo has been guaranteed “logo placements” around the venues and prominent commercials during the American network telecast.

Sir Paul McCartney and Madonna took part in last-minute rehearsals yesterday as an army of 2,000 staff transformed Hyde Park into an arena capable of hosting 205,000 ticket-holders.

Winners of the text-message ticket lottery are advised to arrive before midday and take ID to confirm that they have not bought tickets from touts.

After predicted early showers, the weather is expected to be warm and sunny in the afternoon.

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