Eurosport wins rights to show Olympic Games!

lyverbird1 · Jun 29, 2015

Eurosport : Eurosport wins rights to show Olympic Games! - http://www.eurosport.com/olympic-ga...-to-show-olympic-games_sto4800710/story.shtml

This is pretty important and excellent news for figure skating fans on the eastern side of the pond. I'm not sure about all of Europe and how coverage is of skating during the Olympics but in the UK, it's pretty minimal on terrestrial channels and here in Ireland, it's non existent on local TV. I have huge hopes now with this news that our Olympic skating coverage will be hugely improved, especially given the Eurosport commentators are usually excellent in the main. WOO HOO!!!

TMC · Jun 29, 2015

lyverbird1 said:
Eurosport : Eurosport wins rights to show Olympic Games! - http://www.eurosport.com/olympic-ga...-to-show-olympic-games_sto4800710/story.shtml

This is pretty important and excellent news for figure skating fans on the eastern side of the pond. I'm not sure about all of Europe and how coverage is of skating during the Olympics but in the UK, it's pretty minimal on terrestrial channels and here in Ireland, it's non existent on local TV. I have huge hopes now with this news that our Olympic skating coverage will be hugely improved, especially given the Eurosport commentators are usually excellent in the main. WOO HOO!!!

Oh WOW that is GREAT news, thank you!

sabinfire · Jun 29, 2015

Wow -- about time!

YesWay · Jun 29, 2015

Wow!

In the UK, BBC coverage and commentary of the last Winter Olympics was not bad... But I prefer Eurosport if they can provide the same coverage or better - because I'd rather listen to their commentary team. (Well, except for Joanne Conway. If I never hear her commentating again, it will be too soon -_-)

I just hope Simon Reed is not thinking of retiring within the next 7 years. I mean, isn't he getting on a bit?

For me, it wouldn't be the same without Simon...

Winnie_20 · Jun 29, 2015

I'm afraid my reaction to the news was a big fat :bang:

. I don't see any reason why this should excite me. In the Netherlands, the Olympics have traditionally been covered by the NOS, kind of like the Dutch version of the BBC. Read: no commercials during the programs, a whole lot of live programming on telly (not quite 24/7, but pretty close, *grin*), and, in recent years, free HD live streams of just about every single event that was not being aired live on the telly. Where is my guarantee that they will air even one event of the figure skating live (100 hours is nothing), or that they will make it available through live streams... which you then probably have to pay big bucks for, too.

What a shame. :disagree: :disagree: :disagree:

lyverbird1 · Jun 29, 2015

YesWay said:
Wow!

In the UK, BBC coverage and commentary of the last Winter Olympics was not bad... But I prefer Eurosport if they can provide the same coverage or better - because I'd rather listen to their commentary team. (Well, except for Joanne Conway. If I never hear her commentating again, it will be too soon -_-)

I just hope Simon Reed is not thinking of retiring within the next 7 years. I mean, isn't he getting on a bit?
For me, it wouldn't be the same without Simon...

Agreed, Joanne's commentary was, erm, not vintage...

CaroLiza_fan · Jun 30, 2015

Eurosport Wins Pan-European Olympic TV Rights

It looks like good things are coming out of Discovery Communications buying a majority stake in Eurosport. They have paid £920 million / €1.3 billion for the pan-European Summer and Winter Olympic rights up to 2024!!!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e6c4798-1e57-11e5-ab0f-6bb9974f25d0.html

But, there are complications.

Firstly, the deal does not include Russia.

I don't know about other countries, but in the UK and Ireland, it is the law that the Olympics have to be on Free To Air TV.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/athletics/2015/0629/711365-olympic-tv-rights/

To further complicate matters, the BBC holds the British rights up to 2022, and unsurprisingly the British press are going on about "Oh, the BBC are losing the Olympic rights!"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33311902
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jun/29/bbc-loses-control-olympic-tv-rights-discovery-eurosport
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...t-wins-rights-Games-2022-920million-deal.html

Eurosport and the BBC have traditionally had a good relationship, and there have been many occasions where they have done sub-deals with each other so that they could both show particular sports/events. For example, the "Big 3" snooker tournaments.

And given that the BBC and Discovery also have a very good relationship, co-producing so many documentaries, I do not see this changing.

In France, it is even more complicated. Like in the UK, the state owned broadcaster, France Télévisions, hold the rights up to 2020. And they have done a sub-deal with Canal+.

Canal+ is a long-time shareholder in Eurosport, so this sub-deal may continue. But France Télévisions is the main competition for another of Eurosport's main shareholders, TF1.

It should be noted that the Eurosport deal does not kick in in the UK and France until the current deals run out.

Also as part of this deal, Discovery Communications will be involved in this new year-round Olympic channel that we discussed in this thread a few months ago.

So, what do you think? Is this a good thing?

CaroLiza_fan

Thank you to Wolfie at the IceSkating&Ritmica Forum for bringing this news to my attention. (See here for the original thread – in Italian)

lyverbird1 · Jun 30, 2015

I'm excited for anything that increases our chances in Ireland of having access to more figure skating coverage during the Olympics. We get UK coverage through the BBC and although they do show some skating, it's generally limited to the final group in most competitions and from being spoiled with such wonderful, comprehensive coverage through every season by Eurosport, I find that frustrating and disappointing. I posted about this elsewhere yesterday and it seems although some are excited there are concerns in some countries that it may negatively affect their coverage but unless it is definitely going to remove skating from free to air channels onto a channel that many don't have, I am not sure how it will be a negative thing. Will be interesting to see what happens in 2018, but I'm looking forward to hearing Chris and Simon commentating on the Olympics at last!

YesWay · Jun 30, 2015

Lots of interesting info, CaroLiza_fan. Didn't know the Olympics had to be free-to-air in the UK by law, or the overlapping rights deals etc...

CaroLiza_fan said:
So, what do you think? Is this a good thing?

As I mentioned above, for me it hinges on how much time they give to Figure Skating vs everything else.

Here in the UK, the BBC has no adverts... and in addition to their main channels they add lots of extra "red button" channels to show more simultaneous live events (not in HD though

)... and Robin Cousins + Sue Barker commentary was generally pretty good, if a little "dry".

But if Eurosport can provide at least as much figure skating coverage as the BBC, then that's what I prefer. It's all in HD, and I mostly (!) like their commentary team more. I can deal with the adverts.

CaroLiza_fan · Jun 30, 2015

lyverbird1 said:
I'm excited for anything that increases our chances in Ireland of having access to more figure skating coverage during the Olympics. We get UK coverage through the BBC and although they do show some skating, it's generally limited to the final group in most competitions and from being spoiled with such wonderful, comprehensive coverage through every season by Eurosport, I find that frustrating and disappointing. I posted about this elsewhere yesterday and it seems although some are excited there are concerns in some countries that it may negatively affect their coverage but unless it is definitely going to remove skating from free to air channels onto a channel that many don't have, I am not sure how it will be a negative thing. Will be interesting to see what happens in 2018, but I'm looking forward to hearing Chris and Simon commentating on the Olympics at last!

I know!!! It will be great to hear Simon, Chris and Nicky commentating on the Olympics! :clap:

Although I do think Sue Barker does a great job, I still prefer the Eurosport commentators for pretty much all the Winter Sports that I watch.

(I don't care much for the Summer Games. In fact, I didn't watch ANY of London 2012 apart from the Women's Football!)

But, my concern is about whether the total amount of TV coverage will suffer.

The BBC really spoiled us during the London Summer Games and Sochi Winter Games. Like, in addition to the coverage on the "regular" channels, they provided 24 livestreams for London, and 6 livestreams for Sochi.

Normally, the BBC only has one interactive channel on TV (they used to have 2, but cut back to 1 because they were stopped from increasing the License Fee). But, they increase the number whenever they are covering special events.

For the past few days, the number of BBC Interactive channels on the TV has increased to 1 HD and 3 SD for Glastonbury. Now that Wimbledon has started, I am expecting that to increase again (the adverts say that there will be 15 streams online, so presumably the same number will appear on Sky).

Even with the might of Discovery behind them, I'm not so sure Eurosport would be able to do this.

Also, what is that going to mean for viewers like you, lyverbird1, that are "Down South"? (for those not in Ireland, I mean the Republic)

My Uncle lives in Dublin, and we were down there on Sunday visiting him, and bringing some stuff down. He has cable TV, and while there, I made a point of seeing what channels he can get compared to what we can get "Up North" on Sky. And, I whilst I was impressed with the line-up generally, I did notice that the BBC Interactive channels weren't there.

So, given that RTÉ doesn't show the Olympics any more, are you just restricted to what is on BBC1, 2, 3 and 4? Or, do the BBC let Irish viewers have access to these specialist streams that they put on during major events?

There are a lot of questions that still have to be answered before we can work out if this is a good thing or not.

CaroLiza_fan

CaroLiza_fan · Jun 30, 2015

Oops! It took me so long to post a reply to lyverbird1's post in my thread that the thread had disappeared!

Thank you to the Mods for merging my thread into this one. I hadn't spotted that lyverbird1 had got in first! :eek:

:

We Irish are quick off the mark!

YesWay said:
Lots of interesting info, CaroLiza_fan. Didn't know the Olympics had to be free-to-air in the UK by law, or the overlapping rights deals etc...

As I mentioned above, for me it hinges on how much time they give to Figure Skating vs everything else.

Here in the UK, the BBC has no adverts... and in addition to their main channels they add lots of extra "red button" channels to show more simultaneous live events (not in HD though )... and Robin Cousins + Sue Barker commentary was generally pretty good, if a little "dry".

But if Eurosport can provide at least as much figure skating coverage as the BBC, then that's what I prefer. It's all in HD, and I mostly (!) like their commentary team more. I can deal with the adverts.

Thank you for the compliment, YesWay! And I was the same - I didn't realise it was a requirement either that the Olympics had to be FTA in these islands. (I wonder if it is the same elsewhere?)

And apologies for pretty much writing the same as you! (I was writing at the same time as you, but an update notification delayed the actual posting for about an hour!)

I can live with adverts too. (You can sometimes be grateful for them if nature calls!) But, not too often, and not in inappropriate places!

Towards the end of last season, Eurosport started putting in adverts in the middle of motorbike races again, after years of not doing so. And this has angered me very much. So, I hope the same does not happen with figure skating.

And, yes, Sue and Robin are very knowledgable. But, I just can't take to Robin as a commentator.

CaroLiza_fan

matmuh · Jun 30, 2015

thats great news, assuming that there will be live streams as we do during season cause otherwise no way i can watch it from here (well there might have been livestreams during sochi but i wasnt following FS closely then so i dont know about them ) :laugh:

it was very limited during olympics, only showing last groups and all , i hope we can have great coverage! :cheer:

lyverbird1 · Jun 30, 2015

CaroLiza_fan said:
I know!!! It will be great to hear Simon, Chris and Nicky commentating on the Olympics!

Although I do think Sue Barker does a great job, I still prefer the Eurosport commentators for pretty much all the Winter Sports that I watch.

(I don't care much for the Summer Games. In fact, I didn't watch ANY of London 2012 apart from the Women's Football!)

But, my concern is about whether the total amount of TV coverage will suffer.

The BBC really spoiled us during the London Summer Games and Sochi Winter Games. Like, in addition to the coverage on the "regular" channels, they provided 24 livestreams for London, and 6 livestreams for Sochi.

Normally, the BBC only has one interactive channel on TV (they used to have 2, but cut back to 1 because they were stopped from increasing the License Fee). But, they increase the number whenever they are covering special events.

For the past few days, the number of BBC Interactive channels on the TV has increased to 1 HD and 3 SD for Glastonbury. Now that Wimbledon has started, I am expecting that to increase again (the adverts say that there will be 15 streams online, so presumably the same number will appear on Sky).

Even with the might of Discovery behind them, I'm not so sure Eurosport would be able to do this.

Also, what is that going to mean for viewers like you, lyverbird1, that are "Down South"? (for those not in Ireland, I mean the Republic)

My Uncle lives in Dublin, and we were down there on Sunday visiting him, and bringing some stuff down. He has cable TV, and while there, I made a point of seeing what channels he can get compared to what we can get "Up North" on Sky. And, I whilst I was impressed with the line-up generally, I did notice that the BBC Interactive channels weren't there.

So, given that RTÉ doesn't show the Olympics any more, are you just restricted to what is on BBC1, 2, 3 and 4? Or, do the BBC let Irish viewers have access to these specialist streams that they put on during major events?

There are a lot of questions that still have to be answered before we can work out if this is a good thing or not.

CaroLiza_fan

During the last Winter Olympics, we did get the interactive channels but they didn't work for the first day or two of the skating coverage and that was quite frustrating. Even with the interactive channels it was still pretty basic compared to Eurosports' coverage, with generally only the last group being shown with perhaps British skaters thrown in for good measure or it there were any performances of note from outside the top group. I like being able to see the up and coming skaters or even just to see that more than Russia/Japan/USA/Canada/France etc are represented...

lyverbird1 · Jun 30, 2015

CaroLiza_fan said:
Oops! It took me so long to post a reply to lyverbird1's post in my thread that the thread had disappeared!

Thank you to the Mods for merging my thread into this one. I hadn't spotted that lyverbird1 had got in first! :

We Irish are quick off the mark!

Thank you for the compliment, YesWay! And I was the same - I didn't realise it was a requirement either that the Olympics had to be FTA in these islands. (I wonder if it is the same elsewhere?)

And apologies for pretty much writing the same as you! (I was writing at the same time as you, but an update notification delayed the actual posting for about an hour!)

I can live with adverts too. (You can sometimes be grateful for them if nature calls!) But, not too often, and not in inappropriate places!

Towards the end of last season, Eurosport started putting in adverts in the middle of motorbike races again, after years of not doing so. And this has angered me very much. So, I hope the same does not happen with figure skating.

And, yes, Sue and Robin are very knowledgable. But, I just can't take to Robin as a commentator.

CaroLiza_fan

Go Irish!

And totally agree with you about the BBC commentators, I find Robin to be very dour in his commentating style and he doesn't say enough during the performance. I realise that commentators can say TOO much (not naming names but one culprit sounds like Hot Scamilton) but it's like sometimes he saves all the criticism until the end and then it sounds particularly cranky. Sue is very pleasant but doesn't come across as being all that knowledgeable and I like my commentators to know their stuff to help guide me through the performance sometimes!

Winnie_20 · Jun 30, 2015

Fact is, television coverage is becoming increasingly less important compared to online coverage. 100 hours of Winter Olympics is really nothing. One figure skating event takes how many hours? At least four, surely. So even airing all the figure skating would be like 8 x 4 = 32 hours. And that's just figure skating! There's no way they're going to air all that. What interests me is what they will make available online as HD streams. That's where the future lies, so to speak. The BBC and the NOS and other national public broadcast corporations all provided digital stream of just about every event out there. I just don't see Eurosport being as nice about it. Not without asking something in return... ;-/

dorispulaski · Jul 2, 2015

I watched all of the GP that Eurosport streamed, and was very happy with the quality, by and large. With luck, I will watch the Olympics there!

YesWay · Jul 2, 2015

Winnie_20 said:
Fact is, television coverage is becoming increasingly less important compared to online coverage.

This is true.

However, I also think online coverage remains far, far behind broadcast TV... so much so that it will be a very long time before it nibbles away enough to reach the same league as TV in terms of "importance". Especially for something with such broad appeal as the Olympics.

[Online coverage is very important to me personally - I actually depend on it for certain things and I am grateful for it. But even for me - live streams are always a distant second best, behind HD broadcast TV.

The problems for streaming are video quality (variable, generally lower than HDTV, and often WAY lower than HDTV), unreliable connections and network infrastucture, unable to cope with very high demand, no commentary for streams, % of population able and willing to use it, etc etc. I don't think it's ready for "mainstream", and I just don't see it becoming so, any time soon...]

sabinfire · Jul 2, 2015

YesWay said:
The problems for streaming are video quality (variable, generally lower than HDTV, and often WAY lower than HDTV), unreliable connections and network infrastucture, unable to cope with very high demand, no commentary for streams, % of population able and willing to use it, etc etc. I don't think it's ready for "mainstream", and I just don't see it becoming so, any time soon...]

As long as you have a high-speed internet connection with a reasonably large download Mbps rate, more than likely the issue will be on the content provider's end. Services like HBO Go and Netflix stream to my TV/computer in HD at quality that looks as good as HD broadcast TV to my eyes, so these companies have it figured out. Other streams, like Eurosport HD or WatchESPN offer good quality though not as great as the better services. And then there are 'premium' services that stream sub-par quality (not true HD), such as IceNetwork and... well, I can't think of any other services I've actually paid for that offer outdated stream quality technology from last decade.

rollerblade · Jul 2, 2015

YesWay said:
This is true.

However, I also think online coverage remains far, far behind broadcast TV... so much so that it will be a very long time before it nibbles away enough to reach the same league as TV in terms of "importance". Especially for something with such broad appeal as the Olympics.

[Online coverage is very important to me personally - I actually depend on it for certain things and I am grateful for it. But even for me - live streams are always a distant second best, behind HD broadcast TV.

The problems for streaming are video quality (variable, generally lower than HDTV, and often WAY lower than HDTV), unreliable connections and network infrastucture, unable to cope with very high demand, no commentary for streams, % of population able and willing to use it, etc etc. I don't think it's ready for "mainstream", and I just don't see it becoming so, any time soon...]

I don't know, man. Unless the stations dedicate several channels simultaneously for all the [Olympic] events that are happening at the same time, online coverage is simply invaluable.

You have to "put up with" one thing or another on either coverage. With Online coverage, you put up with lower picture quality... if you have low speed internet and want to watch events on your 80" TV. OTOH, with Broadcast, you put up with delayed primetime telecast instead of live, or them not showing the event you want to watch; and worst of all - them wasting precious coverage minutes to air fluff stories instead of showing competitions.

Since I much much much prefer BBC/B.Esp skating cast, I will take a lowly 360p stream any day over NBC broadcast. And if streams don't work, I'll just wait 10 minutes for sabin to upload it. :laugh:

invisiblespiral · Jul 2, 2015

Yay!

Let's hope they don't geoblock anything....

Eurosport wins rights to show Olympic Games!

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