2022 Winter Olympics

[UTVLifer]

Not watched much of Today at the Games but what I've seen of Chemmy suggests she has been a strong part of the team with knowledge of events far beyond her field, and it was interesting how she talked about her friendships with people in other sports developing following her career, no doubt partly through to broadcast connections, and how she wished she'd had the opportunity as an athlete to get the insights from other sports that she gets now.


I'd also not much overnight coverage until last night with Ayo but he has improved so much over the last couple of years and was completely at ease post-curling. I know winning gold versus losing the final are different scenarios but the difference between him and Janette yesterday shows he's in a different class.

Ayo has flourished in the overnight slot, which I'd partly put down to the fact that (until last night) it was the slot with the least pressure/viewers so Ayo had the space to find his feet and get comfortable in the hot seat. Jeanette meanwhile has struggled a bit in the breakfast slot at times, although she was great out on location last summer for Tokyo for both the Olympics for the BBC and the the Paras for C4.

[RhysJR]

The BBC long-credits/closing montage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyrJJrx3z24

https://www.instagram.com/p/CaNt_vhNTDd/

[RhysJR]

And now both ceremonies are available to watch on YouTube and all the action has been made available to watch again on the Olympics website and the Olympic Channel TV app.

https://olympics.com/en/beijing-2022/video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUs0iL5QOVI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPYldRoEbZs

[Medianext.MX]

[mention]RhysJR[/mention] Quite a fast turnout. I am still confused why they did such in such a short time; I had the idea the rights to video coverage of the world feed were mostly given back to the IOC/OBS after some months (don’t know the exact time, I had the idea of six months; but with the ability of RHBs to use such freely with the permission of the IOC/OBS). It is still the case now, or it changed due to the current situation and/or the decision of the IOC to relax the period of exclusivity to RHBs?

Anyway, the Olympic Channel is a really great AVOD service and I think quite complete in Olympic archives, having some content in YouTube (some of them as Premium Originals) also makes a source of revenue for them.

[RhysJR]

[mention]RhysJR[/mention] Quite a fast turnout. I am still confused why they did such in such a short time; I had the idea the rights to video coverage of the world feed were mostly given back to the IOC/OBS after some months (don’t know the exact time, I had the idea of six months; but with the ability of RHBs to use such freely with the permission of the IOC/OBS). It is still the case now, or it changed due to the current situation and/or the decision of the IOC to relax the period of exclusivity to RHBs?

Anyway, the Olympic Channel is a really great AVOD service and I think quite complete in Olympic archives, having some content in YouTube (some of them as Premium Originals) also makes a source of revenue for them.

I am also surprised by the speed of the turnaround, especially that the content is still on Discovery+/Eurosport Player and BBC iPlayer as well. I haven't really looked through the Olympic Channel archive in depth until you mentioned how good it is and I was taken aback by the breadth of content there (full replays of probably verything back to 2008 and plenty of highlight packages going back to London 1908 covering most games in that period). They also have their original doccumentaries (a few I think have also migrated over to Discovery+) on top of what you mentioned.

Also, at the moment on the Olympic Channel website, there are three feeds with continuing replays from Beijing: snow, ice and general. So if anyone wants to pretend it's last week again, you can go there to enjoy a curated schedule of Olympic action.

The banner to the Beijing 2022 replays on my Firestick Olympic Channel app says that the content becomes available from March 2nd in the USA and from August 31 in China, so for some reason their arrangements is different to at the very least Europe by the looks of it.

[Medianext.MX]

Well, although the 2022 Olympics are over, and the countdown to the 2024 Summer Olympics is underway, the IOC has announced the start of the tender process for European RHBs for Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo 2026 and LA28, although offers may also be submitted for the TBA 2030 Winter Olympics and Brisbane 2032 Summer Olympics. The IOC is administrating the procedures in collaboration with OBS and IMG, the first time the Olympics have appointed an external company to manage the process; they will focus mostly on consultancy services.

Interested broadcasters can submit bids for all 51 European territories, with the possibility of submitting bids for multiple or single territories; such flexibility is being considered due to the ever changing media landscape, the ever increasing (and, most times, prohibitive) cost of sporting rights, and the political turmoil in the continent. In addition, the IOC will sell rights in various packages for different platforms.

The tender process, set for April 25, is not only happening as a so-called blind auction; a "quality threshold" is being implemented for such, with three base criteria: the ability to meet the highest standards in broadcast quality, its ability to reach the widest possible audience, and its commitment to promoting the Olympic Games and the values of the Olympic Movement.

Let's remember two things: in 2015, Discovery/Eurosport had a record-breaking €1.3 billion deal for the Games, something unheard for a pan-European sports network at the time (and the turning point for Eurosport to go upmarket); previously, the IOC had a deal with Sportfive/Lagardère for distribution in most European territories (except the big five markets and Scandinavia) for London and Sochi, and with the EBU beforehand. Sportfive's deal meant many PSBs were left without coverage, most of them going to commercial broadcasters; and some of them exclusively to subscription TV.

The second thing is that rights for many regions are already decided: in the U.S., the mammoth NBCUniversal is extending to these two Olympic cycles (including owners Comcast as national partners for LA28); in Brazil, Globo has also grabbed these rights; additionally, rights in the core Asian markets have been renewed for China Media Group and the Japan Consortium, but in the Korean Peninsula, SBS (and a very profitable sublicensing effort with rivals KBS and MBC) have been displaced by cable network JTBC (they must still sublicense some rights to any or all of these broadcasters); additionally, there are rumblings on media insiders in Latin America that Carlos Slim's América Móvil is likely to renew the rights for the aforementioned Olympic cycles, given the overall success of its coverage in this Olympic cycle.

[Brekkie]

Interested broadcasters can submit bids for all 51 European territories, with the possibility of submitting bids for multiple or single territories; such flexibility is being considered due to the ever changing media landscape, the ever increasing (and, most times, prohibitive) cost of sporting rights, and the political turmoil in the continent. In addition, the IOC will sell rights in various packages for different platforms.

This is where government intervention is needed to protect the ability of British broadcasters to bid for rights of events on the Crown jewels list.