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Wimbledon ball girl at the net, 2007
The Wimbledon Finals are obliged to be shown live and in full on terrestrial television (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5) by government mandate. Highlights of the rest of the tournament must be provided by terrestrial stations; live coverage (excepting the finals) may be sought by satellite or cable TV. Americans have made a tradition of NBC's "Breakfast at Wimbledon" specials at weekends, where live coverage starts early in the morning (the US being a minimum of 5 hours behind the UK) and continues well into the afternoon, interspersed with commentary and interviews from Bud Collins, whose tennis acumen and (in)famous patterned trousers are well-known to tennis fans in the USA. Collins was sacked by NBC in 2007, but was promptly hired by ESPN, the cable home for The Championships in the States. For many years NBC's primary Wimbledon host was veteran broadcaster Dick Enberg. From 1975 to 1999, premium channel HBO carried weekday coverage of Wimbledon. Hosts included Jim Lampley, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, John Lloyd and Barry MacKay among others. Wimbledon was also involved, unintentionally, in a piece of television history, on 1 July 1967. That was when the first official colour broadcast took place in the UK. Four hours live coverage of Wimbledon was shown on BBC2 (then the only colour channel in the UK), and although footage of that historic match no longer survives, the men's final that year is still held in the BBC archives because it was the first men's final transmitted in colour.
Since 2007, the most anticipated Wimbledon matches have been transmitted in High Definition, on the BBC's free-to-air channel BBC HD, with continual live coverage during the tournament of Centre Court and Court No. 1 as well as an evening highlights show Today at Wimbledon. In Ireland RTÉ broadcast the tournament during the 1980s and 1990s on their second channel RTÉ Two, they also provided highlights of the games in the evening. RTÉ made the decision in 1998 to discontinue broadcasting the tournament due to falling viewing figures and the large number of viewers watching on the BBC. Since 2005 TG4 Ireland's Irish language broadcaster provide coverage to the tournament. Live coverage is provided through the Irish language while they broadcast highlights in English at night.