Surprised to see Hazel and Clare confined to Salford, especially as Clare's greatest strength is mixing with the public and soaking up the atmosphere in the Olympic Park. Also, is Hazel not commentating on the OC? It would be odd if they had her doing it off-tube.
Surprised to see Hazel and Clare confined to Salford, especially as Clare's greatest strength is mixing with the public and soaking up the atmosphere in the Olympic Park. Also, is Hazel not commentating on the OC? It would be odd if they had her doing it off-tube.
Not sure there will be much atmosphere between 0200 and 0300 in the Olympic Park - when Clare is on-air.
With Pyeongchang 9 hours ahead, UK prime time - where you can see Clare being deployed - is in the very early morning in Korea, and doesn't make for good location presentation. It's a time-zone based decision I suspect.
Has there been any announcements at all regarding Eurosports coverage. I've seen nothing about what they plan and other than Jonathan Edwards, announced a couple of years back, no presenters mentioned either.
Are they even planning to have a curated feed for UK audiences (and elsewhere in Europe) or is it just going to be their standard coverage switching from event to event, which was fine when they were secondary pay-TV rights holders but seems below par being the primary rights holder. Digiguide only has info for day 1 at the moment which doesn't give away much about programming beyond straight forward sports coverage other than them having Olympics Today at 7pm (head to head with the BBC) and Olympics Extra at 9pm.
Also any news on where the BBC coverage in Salford will be hosted from. Will they use the space they used for the athletics a couple of years ago and just hope for a couple of weeks of Salford snow?
Are they even planning to have a curated feed for UK audiences (and elsewhere in Europe)
Sweden, Norway, Finland and Germany all have studios on site, plus the UK has some presentation positions. 8 countries will have commentators, reporters and presenters at venues. And resources are definitely being thrown at countries' national interests - I've not properly studied the schedule, but there is a UK gallery live for most of the day, so you won't just get what's on the pan-Europe feed.
Is there any news on whether they / anyone is providing access to the OBS feeds?
I wouldn't be surprised if Eurosport offered them on the Eurosport Player?
Interesting that the ARD/ZDF deal in Germany is quite different to the UK deal (the BBC had a stronger hand in some ways as they had exclusive 2018 and 2020 rights and bartered them with Discovery who had exclusive 2022 and 2024 rights)
Quote:
"ARD/ZDF will present a wide selection of free-to-air coverage on television and digital simulcast, as well as three additional feeds of live sport action, enabling viewers to follow every German medal hopeful.
Eurosport will show free-to-air coverage on Eurosport 1 as a dedicated Olympic Games channel during Games-time and holds rights to air every moment, with live feeds of all sports, on TV or streaming on mobile, tablet or online with Eurosport Player.
Eurosport will retain Pyeongchang 2018 exclusivity for German prime time on Eurosport 1.
Snowboard, Short Track, Figure Skating and Ice Hockey, excluding German team matches and finals, will also be live and exclusive on Eurosport."
So Eurosport 1 is FTA in Germany for the duration, and can show anything at any time. ARD/ZDF can't broadcast in prime time, and can only show German matches and finals in some events that are otherwise Eurosport-exclusive. That's a significant difference to the BBC. However ARD/ZDF appear to have more online rights as they can run 3 digital streams - whereas the BBC can only run one?
As it is, ARD/ZDF are paying a total of €221.5 million to sublicence the four Games 2018–2024. It sounds as if those 2 channels are allowed to broadcast at the same time as each other - they're promising to televise 230 hours this year - but unlike the BBC, the German PSBs have got this restriction on broadcasting in primetime, or on showing certain sports live.
Eurosport also declined to buy the rights to the Winter Paralympics, whose rights are sold separately. For some reason ARD and ZDF bought those rights late, only in November 2017 (AFAIK German Eurosport wasn't interested), whereas Channel 4 had already completed its deal a year earlier for the same two Paralympics (2018/2020). I wonder if ARD/ZDF weren't even going to bother with the Paralympics without the Olympic rights? A bad look, if so.