Creative artists, including opera singer Heather Harper, film director Franco Zeffirelli, conductor Leonard Bernstein, sculptor Alexander Calder and painter Joan Miró were invited to perform or appear in separate live segments, each of them produced by one of the participant broadcasters.

Due to the magnitude of the production, its coordination was transferred to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), with Singer as the project's head.

Intelsat II F-2 ("Lani Bird") and NASA's ATS-1 were positioned over different parts of the Pacific Ocean to complete global coverage.

These signals were monitored and manipulated by technical and production teams in 43 control rooms that linked North America, Europe, Tunisia, Japan and Australia in real time.

[1] Fourteen national broadcasters participated in the program, which was transmitted live to 24 countries, with an estimated audience between 400 and 700 million people.

[i] Back in BBC's TC1 studio in London, a journey around the world was begun by switching to Austria's national broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk-Fernsehen.

France was the next destination, aboard a Protection Civile helicopter flying over the returning weekend traffic at Porte de la Chapelle in Paris.

This was the location for the Glassboro Summit Conference between American president Lyndon Johnson and Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin.

[3] Back in BBC's TC1 studio in London, a section about human overpopulation was introduced starting at the Controlled Environment Research Laboratory (CERES).

Next, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)'s phytotron in Canberra, Australia, featured plant physiologist Lloyd Evans.

Back in BBC's TC1 studio in London, a section about people trying to achieve their best was introduced starting at Empire Pool in Vancouver, Canada, featuring swimmer Elaine Tanner trying to break the 110-yard butterfly World Record –reported by Ted Reynolds–,[i] and continuing at the Equestrian Circle in Castellazzo di Bollate, Italy, featuring riders Piero D'Inzeo and Raimondo D'Inzeo –reported by Alberto Giubilo–;[j] at Söderfors, Sweden, featuring canoeists Gert Fredriksson, Gunnar Utterberg, Lars Andersson and Rolf Pettersson;[k] and, finishing at Calanque de Callelongue in Marseille, France aboard the maiden voyage of the Téléscaphe, the very first underwater cable car.

[l] Back in BBC's TC1 studio in London, a section about people in pursuit of art was introduced starting at San Pietro church in Tuscania, Italy for the rehearsals of the film Romeo and Juliet, featuring film director Franco Zeffirelli and actors Milo O'Shea, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey[j] and continuing at Bayreuth Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, West Germany, for the Bayreuth Festival rehearsals of the opera Lohengrin featuring director Wolfgang Wagner, conductor Rudolf Kempe and singers Heather Harper and Grace Hoffman;[m] at Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France featuring sculptor Alexander Calder and painter Joan Miró;[l] at Mexico City, Mexico featuring singers Antonio Aguilar singing "Allá en el Rancho Grande" on horseback and Flor Silvestre singing "Como México no hay dos" –reported by León Michel–;[h] at the Lincoln Center in New York City featuring conductor Leonard Bernstein and pianist Van Cliburn rehearsing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.

[o] Back in BBC's TC1 studio in London, a section about outer space was introduced starting at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy in the United States,[n] continuing at Parkes Observatory in Parkes, Australia, featuring John Gatenby Bolton tracking quasar 0237–23, the most distant known object in the universe at the time –reported by Kim Corcoran–[p][9] and finishing back in BBC's TC1 studio in London for a closing segment intercutting live footage from several of the locations already shown.

Among the friends were members of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Moon and Graham Nash.

[11] In the 2000 novel The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, the global media empire run by Hiram Patterson is called OurWorld, the name chosen after the character saw the program as a child and was inspired to change the world.

[12] A permanent exhibition at London's Science Museum opened in 2018, telling the story of the transmission using footage from the show itself and video interviews with surviving members of the production team, recalling the technical challenges involved and the legacy created by the broadcast.