Olympics 2012 - non-BBC specific

Yep - but they were developed by the BBC, not OBS, in association with CrystalCG. AIUI CrystalCG also did work for the BBC on the Beijing Olympics.

Presumably there was then a deal done to make them available to third parties.

The temporary AJ studio is on the what is known locally as the 'hex' area of the the South Bank's Jubilee walk. It doesn't have six sides but there you go.

As an aside, AJ's technical facilities are provided by TLS, a lot of the production staff are provided by ITV sport - AJ book a lot of their own production staff too. They have unfettered access to ITV Sport's archive which probably explains why they currently hold the contract.

If team GB win a gold medal then accredited news providers can show 4 minutes of coverage from the Olympic venues - that includes any material recorded at an Olympic venue by the accredited news provider itself, ie, if Steve Scott (sp?) interviews a 'punter' within any venue it counts towards the 4 mins for example. They also have to credit the BBC every 30 secs or so. If they go over 4mins they have to pay (but not sure who they have to pay). To keep within this limit it's usual practice to use stills if you can get away with it.

I suspect this has been negotiated under the remit of the EBU, I don't think BskyB is a member of the EBU and is therefore probably not an accredited news provider to this event, by choice. ITN will definitely will be, and of course they produce C4 News.

As I understand it, it's limited to a few (6?) minutes a day, but they can't show it until after the rights holder in that territory has.

For Channel 4 that is fairly straightforward... the problem is with international channels like CNN, BBC World, Al Jazeera, RT. They have to wait until every rights holder has shown the event which is taken to be midnight London time. Again that's fairly simple this time round with them being held in GMT+1, but in Beijing the timezone wasn't so favourable to the big international channels

No, Sky isn't a member of the EBU, in fact they're the major player in a rival organisation.

ITN isn't an EBU member as they're not a broadcaster, but ITV and Channel 4 are. That said I don't think that EBU membership has anything to do with the showing of highlights

No - I don't think being an EBU member is relevant. Just because you are an EBU member doesn't mean you are an Olympic Rights Holder.

I think the difference between Sky and C4/ITV is probably to do with their broadcast reach. ITV/C4 are domestic only - whereas Sky (and non-rights holding BBC World News) are broadcasting around the world.

Global broadcasters have to wait until all rights holders in all time zones have had time to show their coverage before it is seen on a non-rights holding news channel. That's where the 24 hours (though that might not be the time delay) issue kicks in for Sky and BBC World News.

I don't think there is a delay issue for ITV/C4 as they know that the only rights holder in the UK (the BBC - and possibly Eurosport) has broadcast them already (as they'll be recording them off-air)

How they chose to use their allocated minute-age (they can't show entire events UNLESS the event is very quick - like the 100m sprint) is up to them I guess.

That's not in the OBS studio block - it looks like they're outside the fence, somewhere near Pudding Mill Lane. (A big giveaway is the DLR train passing through the second shot). That'll save them a fair bit of money and hassle by not needing quite as many accreditations.

This article (note the date) explains how the rights to the 2012 Olympics were awarded to the EBU.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/jun/18/olympicsandthemedia.bbc

Not sure how the BBC ended up with the uk (sub-rights?). I understand from 2016 the Olympics have been awarded directly to the BBC and the EBU has been cut out completely. In the increasingly commercial world we live in I wonder if the EBU is becoming increasingly irrelevant in this regard, I seem to vaguely recall that the whoever is negotiating the rights to the Rio world cup have bypassed the EBU completely and are negotiating directly with broadcasters. I think the EBU bid, but were simply turned down as it wasn't enough.

Edit: This article details that it's actually the Olympics from 2014 that the EBU have failed to secure:

http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/168397/ioc-rejects-ebu-bid-201416-olympic-games-rights

The point is made that the EBU secured the rights to the 2010/2012 Olympics for $700m, so if the EBU have secured the rights to the current event, by what rights/payment 'mechanism' is the BBC showing the 2012 coverage?

Here's a link to the BBC's announcement that they have 'won' the rights to the the Olympics from 2014 - 2016:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2012/bbcsport-olympics.html

For the first time the EBU were not involved.

The point you make about Sky being an 'international' broadcaster and the possible limitations imposed is certainly an interesting one, do we know if Sky are showing any moving pictures at any stage? (I don't watch Sky myself).

It's 4 mins if Team GB win a gold, 3 mins if they win a silver. Not sure about a bronze. That's the total minuteage across all the Olympic venues.

Isn't it more complicated than that, the total minuteage is 6 minutes of olympic footage but then the amount of footage of each event depends on the result of the event.

I've not heard anything about the minuteage varying, the full IOC new access rules say 6 minutes:
http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Games_London_2012/IOC_News_Access_Rules-London_2012_Eng.pdf
unless it's a local agreement with the BBC of course, which is likely.... maybe C4 have done the same for the Paralympics

It is a lot more complicated than just 6 minutes though, there are rules about how often you can show it, how much in a bulletin and the time between showings, it's all in the above link

It's a 3 hour delay:
a) As of three (3) hours following the broadcast of an Olympic event by the local
Right Holding Broadcaster on free-to-air television in that territory;

b) If not broadcast by the local Rights Holding Broadcaster on free-to-air
television in that territory on the day (local time) during which the Olympic
event concluded, then as of the end of the broadcast day (i.e. 24:00 hours
local time); or

c) Non-Rights Holders can broadcast Olympic Material prior to the times referred
to above, or can broadcast more Olympic Material than allowed above, only
with the specific written agreement of the local Rights Holding Broadcaster.

Clause B won't count in the UK as everything is being shown live by the BBC. As I say they might have given C4 extra highlights under C