Olympics Update - to remain on the BBC until at least 2024

Remember this, NBC being roasted for half-soaked coverage and the hashtag #nbcfail all over Twitter. And the infamous occasion where they trailed the result of something or other prior to showing the event itself...

This page has some quotes from a Twitter handle that has access to old message boards and Usenet posts and suggests the problem of sub-standard American Olympics coverage dates back to 1992:
http://gawker.com/5930278/the-internet-has-always-hated-nbcs-olympics-coverage

Many Americans close to the Canadian border choose to watch the CBC (or CTV, depending on who has the rights that particular year) for the Olympics.

Effectively it is a return to the coverage levels of pre-2000 (and possibly 2000?) Summer Games, without the 4-24 streams that we've had since 2004.

However it's not as if the BBC had a choice is it? At least for post 2020 events. It was never going to be feasible for the BBC to sub-licence lots of additional streams.

At least we're not in the situation that some other European countries are. In Sweden, SVT lost the 2014 Winter Olympic rights to Viasat. TV3 - which is a basic Pay-TV channel many people subscribe to - carried a single stream on their regular channels, but there was a separate premium operation to access the web streams of additional live events. It wasn't a huge amount - and lots of people paid for it.

You could argue that the BBC could have decided to go all out for 2018 and 2020 and then lose them entirely from 2022. Personally I think this deal is probably the best the BBC could have achieved, and reputationally, it continues to allow them to be the UK FTA home of the Olympics (and probably still the most-watched outlet in the UK for Olympic coverage)

I recall - despite the controversy - NBC declaring it the most watched Olympics ever. Basically, their strategy of teasing the events and forcing viewers to watch the highlights later, resulted in bigger audiences, bigger share and more ad revenue.

I did some googling, and this nauseating paper from Harvard Business School praising NBC, illustrates just that. Everything was a pure commercial business decision - with what the viewers really wanted not really figuring at all in the decision making process. Indeed, a couple of key quotes:

"The 2012 London Summer Olympics drew the largest audience in U.S. television history. NBC exceeded $1 billion worth of advertising revenue for its six TV networks, digital platforms, and local TV stations before the Olympics had even started.

The success of Team USA (the athletes), the diversity of viewing options/social media partnerships, London’s successful hosting, and many Americans’ interest in London and the UK, translated into great success for NBC, its affiliates, and its advertisers.

Major sponsors such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and P&G saw their brands trending (i.e., becoming more popular) on Twitter and Facebook, and thus increased their followership tremendously."

Also:

"NBC executives later reportedly pondered whether the ratings would have been better had they tape-delayed [more] events. NBC’s own research has found that people are more likely to watch a prime-time tape-delayed telecast when they already know the results of the event (particularly if they like the outcome).

All the “spoilers” on Twitter and Facebook in 2012 helped NBC market its prime-time telecasts."

Although NBC did boast about record ratings, but then short of living near the Canadian border or using a VPN, they had to watch NBC, so it's hardly a testament to the quality of their coverage- just that they were the only outlet. And they still lost money apparently.

It really does sadden me now that we're now in the situation where such poor deals are described as "the best the BBC could have achieved".

This was not a situation that the BBC had any say over and it was not due to anything your dreaded Tories did. The only people are to blame are the IOC.

I find the IOC to be a distasteful organization, but can you really blame them for signing a TV rights deal that they felt was the most financially advantageous to them? After all, TV rights to just about anything are usually sold in a way that guarantees the most revenue to the rights holder (this includes the BBC's foreign rights sales, by the way), and I don't see why this is any different.

You really need to get that political chip off your shoulder in this instance. Discovery bid for pan-European rights, and won. This has NOTHING to do with those greedy nasty evil Tories, and this really does seem the best deal the BBC could have got in these circumstances.

I do agree on that one, although it is now down to OFCOM and the DCMS to enforce our laws which state that "Full live coverage" of the Olympic Games is a protected event under the broadcasting act of 1996.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/other-codes/listed_events.pdf

And in full: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/other-codes/ofcom_code_on_sport.pdf


OFCOM always have to approve even the broadcasters that qualify to show listed events having any exclusive rights to any part of the coverage, so there would be no justification at all for them to approve Eurosports deal or their sub-licencing deal with the BBC.

I'll reference the other relevant parts (IMO) as they're a pain to copy and paste but 1.12 states each event within the Olympics should be treated as a single event when it comes to the act - so just as Austria v Switzerland is protected for World Cup coverage so are the preliminaries of Synchornised Swimming at the Olympics.

Section 1.14 though is the most relevant regarding the opportunity for broadcasters to bid for the event fairly, something which clearly wasn't the case here.


In my (admittedly biased) opinion it's pretty clear that both the IOC deal with Eurosport and the BBC deal announced this week contravene the 1996 Broadcasting Act. It is now time for the regulator to stand up for the viewer.

I have a feeling that there are amendments to the above in the Communications Act 2003.

A very simple solution would be for the pan-European deal to be formed between non-UK companies under a non-UK law.