[Jon]

What happens if Ofcom change the rules and insist all coverage must be free to air. There was talk of that happening after the backlash to coverage of Tokyo and Bejing.

It didn’t happen though. Presumably the next time anyone would notice will be after the next games then it’ll be forgotten about by the time this deal starts up.

[Brekkie]

The law as it stands states the games must be covered for free in their "entirety", but it wasn't worth the paper it was written on when it came to this deal, yet has long been held up to prevent the BBC/ITV putting the simultaneous World Cup matches behind a pay wall.

Really is a disgrace this deal has been renewed - it was woefully inadequate and any pay-TV/FTA joint venture should enable the FTA broadcast to at the very least show all sessions including medal events featuring their own country live. Ideally it should extend to being able to show every medal event live and every event featuring, in our case, a British athlete, live. What's worse though is how poor the Discovery+ coverage actually was - the live streams were so poorly curated compared to what the BBC had previously delivered, either difficult to find online or in the case of the broadcast streams they were clearly targetted to the European audience meaning events of British interest got little coverage.

[Jon]

The law as it stands states the games must be covered for free in their "entirety", but it wasn't worth the paper it was written on when it came to this deal, yet has long been held up to prevent the BBC/ITV putting the simultaneous World Cup matches behind a pay wall.

I think the issue is it’s impossible for the BBC (or ITV) to broadcast everything on qualifying channels. But instead of doing the obvious things and say any overspill must be made available on qualifying broadcasters streaming services they’ve allowed it to be behind a paywall. But I’d say former idea would be in the spirit of the law.

[Newshound47]

What happens if Ofcom change the rules and insist all coverage must be free to air. There was talk of that happening after the backlash to coverage of Tokyo and Bejing.

It didn’t happen though. Presumably the next time anyone would notice will be after the next games then it’ll be forgotten about by the time this deal starts up.

I thought there was some sort of general review of the whole system coming up?

[Brekkie]

It didn’t happen though. Presumably the next time anyone would notice will be after the next games then it’ll be forgotten about by the time this deal starts up.

I thought there was some sort of general review of the whole system coming up?

They did add the Paralympics and some Womens events a couple of years ago but haven't really given it the full review that successive governments have been kicking into the long grass (exclusively on Sky) for a couple of decades. Sadly cricket set the precedent of it only really working for as long as the relevant governing bodies value it.


Putting that to one side what is interesting here is the WBDiscovery are continuing to invest in high value content at a time when they're writing so much off. Heck, if they treat it like they're treating some films and series lately they won't even air them so they don't have to put the cost through the books. What's also interesting is it's being sold as a joint deal with the EBU - not sure how the IOC sold the rights (they may have put up a FTA and pay-TV package) so it's possible the bids were independent, but if they joined forces it does feel somewhat anti-competitive, although of course the long running BBC-ITV football deals are arguably that too.

[Medianext.MX]

Really is a disgrace this deal has been renewed - it was woefully inadequate and any pay-TV/FTA joint venture should enable the FTA broadcast to at the very least show all sessions including medal events featuring their own country live.  Ideally it should extend to being able to show every medal event live and every event featuring, in our case, a British athlete, live.    What's worse though is how poor the Discovery+ coverage actually was - the live streams were so poorly curated compared to what the BBC had previously delivered, either difficult to find online or in the case of the broadcast streams they were clearly targetted to the European audience meaning events of British interest got little coverage.

This is actually a double-edge sword in the deal. Although Eurosport retains the full coverage, worth noting this will increase the number of broadcasters offering FTA coverage. For example: in the previous rights cycle, Scandinavian FTA rights belonged almost exclusively to Discovery's own terrestrial channels. In the case of Norway and Sweden, Discovery chose not to begin talks with NRK, TV 2 and SVT, but eventually placed it on its own channels (TVNorge/MAX and Kanal 5/Kanal 9); this caused protests in both countries. This new deal should allow NRK and TV 2 shared the slice of FTA rights with TVNorge, and SVT (and maybe TV4, even if they're no longer EBU Members, they are still involved with Eurovision Sport in some form) share rights with Kanal 5 and Kanal 9. In Denmark and Finland, it's status quo: DR and TV 2 will share their slice with Discovery Denmark, and Yle remains sole FTA rights holder.

[Brekkie]

The trouble is a one size fits all approach doesn't work for Europe. The deal prior to the current Eurosport one I think saw the "big 5" dealt with independently and then the smaller countries collated together (which again what works for Estonia probably doesn't work for Austria!).

There does seem to be some variation in this deal - most countries get what has long been the IOC minimum of 200 hours FTA coverage of summer games and 100 hours of the Winter Games, but the BBC maintaining it's two stream deal will at least be above that. Germany has a caveat of Discovery also providing FTA coverage as Eurosport is free to air. An article I read yesterday implied that ARD/ZDF may have extra streams too. Last time around unlike the BBC they held out (to the point Discovery announced alternative FTA plans) and ended up with a deal with multiple streams as well.

[Medianext.MX]

An update on the joint EBU/WBD Olympic deal...


[*]Most broadcasters (including the BBC) will only have access to three linear offerings (two TV channels plus a curated stream, or three TV channels with online simulcast). EBU members in Germany, Scandinavia and Hungary won't have these limitations. However, there will be no restrictions to the number of hours they can select for linear coverage.
[*]EBU and WBD are working to cross promote each other's coverage (and maybe sharing some production resources) to drive FTA viewers to subscribe to Eurosport Player or (HBO) Max, taking the precedent of VRT sublicensing Vuelta a España to Eurosport in exchange for cross promoting Eurosport's Grand Tour coverage. Worth noting the BBC may be excluded due to their Royal Charter.


www.sportspromedia.com 

www.sportbusiness.com 

EBU, Warner Bros. Discovery aim for improved content promotion in Olympics deal …
The European Broadcasting Union and Warner Bros. Discovery intend to discuss gre…
  Source: www.sportbusiness.com

[Transmission]

Little bit of cricket rights news, BT Sport have got Australia's tour of India which starts tomorrow night. Appears the deal with Disney/Star might be just for this series rather than anything longer term for Indian cricket.

Meanwhile still no UK TV or radio rights agreed for England's tour of Bangladesh next month. Seems broadcasters are waiting for the price to come down, especially as it's not expected to be a full-strength England squad.

[W. Knight]

Nine Network in Australia to be snatching Olympic rights from incumbent Seven for over 300 mil, per Sydney Morning Herald.

... and it's official:
twitter.com