The 2012 Paralympic Games

Here's the advert.

Not quite sure what to make of that - in a way I think we kind of need to get the Olympics out of the way before they can really push the Paralympics.

I assume C4 still plan to completely theme the channel once the Olympics are over and I guess the break bumpers, endcaps etc. will be similar to what we've seen on the Paralympic Show. It'll be interesting to see what they do with the idents - in theory considering we've seen versions without the C4 they could possibly keep the idents but switch to the 2012 logo instead.

I suppose the idea is, before everyone's completely distracted by games, make the big song and dance when there's a chance to introduce them and go "hey, these are happening too" - then quiet a bit during the Olympics, once they're done and there's the gap, can go big again.

A pretty good promo I thought. I was particularly impressed by the war/birth/accident bit.


Although this ad from Canada, which is for their Paralympic committee rather than TV coverage does have the edge over it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUYUvY6quE0

The International Paralympic Committee will be broadcasting 580 hours of live sport during the course of the Paralympics on their website:

http://www.paralympic.org/news/ipc-website-livestream-580-hours-sport-during-london-2012

I wonder how Channel 4 will be handling advertising during the opening ceremony. It'll surely be controversial even if the breaks are very short. They could well air it completely commercial free in spite of (or perhaps because of) it more than likely being the channel's highest rated programme of all time.

It will be a tricky one to get right - ideally they'd do something like "Presented without commercial interuption, in association with BT", but I think realistically there will be ads. I'd prefer more frequent shorter breaks (actually throughout their coverage of the games) than opting out for four minutes at a time, preferbly largely taken during the athletes parade - although that could backfire and be seen as disrespectful to the paralympians. The Olympic ceremony though had obvious points where breaks could have been taken, but on the flipside the VT segments were some of the highlights of the night.

Anyone know how commercial broadcasters covering it live, would have faired?

With Channel 4, probably being the broadcasters paying the most, they might be able to demand a few short opportunities for commercials.

Are we expecting this to live up in anyway to Danny Boyle's masterpiece?

Couldn't they get special permission to split screen for commercials - a bit like RTL7 does during the F1 races; or placard on-screen advertisments more recently seen on Setanta Sports and more commonly in use on Italian sport programmes.

I doubt they could get special permission, Ofcom rules either permit it or they don't.

And sound is just as important as the images.

It might have to be captions with the sponsors logo on.

As far as we're aware are C4 still planning to go all out with their Paralympic branding from next week? I'm sure when they won the deal they said the channel would be rebranded accordingly after the Olympic closing ceremony as part of the build up to their coverage, but haven't heard anything about it recently.

I doubt idents will change (though I do think the 2012 logo could work very well in a similar style to the C4 logo), but the bumpers at least are already out there having been used in their Paralympic shows and look very good.