Models in bikinis are hired by a TV station in China, which aims at securing ratings, to report weather for its 2012 UEFA European Football Championship coverage.
Photos of the girls went viral on China's popular microblogs after the TV station's sports channel decided on the risque strategy to combat its rival which invited renowned classical pianist Li Yundi to perform Chopin for its Euro 2012 coverage.
The photos were forwarded more than a thousand times within a few hours, with many netizens saying that they switched to the TV station's coverage because of it.
The girls, who appear for only one minute every night to discuss the weather conditions in Ukraine and Poland, where the football tournament is being held, have become one of the hottest topics on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter.
Sources say there will be a total of ten models used by the TV station for the duration of Euro 2012. All the girls are reportedly contestants from a bikini pageant in Guangzhou, who must be between 18 and 30 years old and at least 162cm tall.
However, not everyone is impressed. Some netizens have complained that one of the girls appear to be overweight and that others have unappealing reporting voices.
STOMPer Torres wrote:
"Any man would tune in to watch the bikini girls rather than watching some pianist perform.
"After all, football, beer and babes are what most men crave for!
"This goes to show that the TV station knows what its viewers want and that it never goes wrong to hire beautiful girls!"
Images 1 to 3 are of the models in bikinis while the rest of the gallery are of soccer-inspired photo shoots and beautiful girls hired by other Chinese businesses.
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