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The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) agreed on Sunday to make their top events more TV friendly, with shorter finals-packed evening sessions that are aimed at winning back younger viewers.

It said the schedule changes would come in by the 2010 World Indoor Games in Doha.

Athletics, like the Olympic Games, has been suffering from an ageing viewership with younger audiences turning to shorter forms of sport or entertainment.

The IAAF said it would not shorten the duration of its outdoor and indoor world championships but would confine qualification events only to mornings and finals to compact media-attractive three-hour evening sessions.

"We have had enthusiastic support from broadcasters," Bob Hersh, IAAF council member and head of the competition commission, told reporters. "The object is to make athletics more attractive to live spectators and TV audiences."

Hersh said some of the changes, including the introduction of official video distance measurement (VDM) for the long and triple jump competitions, would be tested at this year's world championships in Berlin.

"What we want to do is create a template, an integrated global competition system, that can serve us well," he said. "A global primetime product of no more than three hours."

The new Diamond League meetings, which will replace the top Golden League series from next year, will also be short TV friendly events, lasting about two hours, Hersh said.

But neither athletes nor broadcasters should expect any "revolutionary changes," IAAF President Lamine Diack said.

"You should not expect a revolution. This is not something we will change from one day to the other," Diack told reporters at the end of a council meeting.

"We want to be more TV friendly but we will not give in to all of the demands by broadcasters," he said, adding the European Broadcasting Union had wanted the IAAF to cut its major events to six days instead of the current nine days.

(Source: Reuters)