Eurosport wins rights to show Olympic Games!

[CaroLiza_fan]

Just something I thought you might find interesting.

During last week's coverage of the Knockhill round of the British Superbike Championship, we were told that for the next round (Brands Hatch, on 18th/19th July), British Eurosport 2 would only be showing coverage of qualifying day on the Saturday, due to the schedules being packed on the Sunday. (When I subsequently looked up the schedules, I found out that BES1 would be showing cycling, while BES2 would be showing tennis).

After a couple of seconds of sheer panic, we we told that the main race day coverage would instead be shown on Discovery's Free to Air channel, Quest. (Which, unlike Eurosport, is available on terrestrial TV).

So, this is an interesting development. Eurosport is now using one of Discovery's other channels as an overflow.

Which starts you wondering. Is this what is planned for the Olympics coverage? Using Discovery's non-specialised channels (Quest and DMAX) for extra Olympic broadcasts that there is no room for on Eurosport.

In the meantime, if this becomes a trend, it could be a godsend for us!

Ever since Setanta GB closed down, British Eurosport has been showing a lot of things that are not shown on Eurosport International. And, because of this, we lose out on a lot of things that are shown on Eurosport International. Such as Eurosport's full figure skating coverage.

If these things that are shown only in the British Isles could be shifted over to Quest and/or DMAX, then we could be able to see the things that we don't currently get, such as the women's ski jumping, or Frauen Bundesliga, or more figure skating.

To put it in other words, does this mean that, after an absence of 16 years, British and Irish viewers will now finally be getting Eurosport International back?!

I really hope so!!!

Fingers crossed!!!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[dorispulaski]

 

[dorispulaski]

Are there any more details on this?

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

Are there any more details on this?

Yep, there was an announcement yesterday!

As I suspected would happen (see this post), it has now been announced that the BBC and Discovery (through Eurosport) have signed a deal which will see them share coverage of the Olympics until 2024.

Here is the announcement on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2016/olympics-rights

And here it is on Eurosport’s website:

http://www.eurosport.co.uk/olympic-...mpic-games-partnership_sto5099029/story.shtml

The pan-European contract that Discovery signed with the IOC starts after the 2016 Summer Games. But the current BBC contract runs until the 2022 Winter Games. So, what they have done is that Eurosport will sub-licence from the BBC during the overlap period, and then the BBC will sub-license from Eurosport after that.

So, in other words, they will be sharing coverage for all the Olympic Games after 2016.

Here is where I originally read the story:

http://www.a516digital.com/2016/02/bbc-secures-olympic-access-until-2024.html

And here is how some UK newspapers are reporting the development:

Financial Times (Requires subscription)
Daily Mail
Daily Telegraph

It will be interesting to see if the same thing happens in other countries.

As in the UK, it is the law that there has to be Free-to-Air coverage of the Olympics in Ireland. But, in recent years, RTÉ have not taken up the option of showing the Olympics through being an EBU member. Instead, the Irish coverage has been through BBC NI being available Down South. So, I suspect that this will continue.

There is also an overlap in contracts in France, so I would say getting a deal sorted there will now be the priority for Discovery.


All in all, I do think we are getting the best of both worlds through this deal.

CaroLiza_fan

 

[petitebrie]

This deal has made it too expensive for one of the largest cable providers in Norway to continue showing any of the Discovery group channels, so I lost Eurosport. -___- But anything is better than the complete and utter disaster of the tv channel that showed the Sochi Olympics, so I’m not worried. (I’m still mad about that commentary. They knew literally nothing about figure skating. They couldn’t tell the jumps apart, they just made comments (and not always nice or appropriate ones) about people’s looks. Everyone I know just switched to Swedish tv, lol.)

The state channel used to have the right to the Olympics before 2014, and they have three different channels to air various events on and no ads. They have good online streaming services too, e.g. they streamed the entirety of Euros this year.

AFAIK Eurosport now has the sole rights to the 2018–2024 Olympics.

 

[melmel]

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)

For france, on tv the coverage wasn't that great but we had good livestreams (AND WITH NO COMMENT) on their website to absolutely everything and live (that's how I could watch the entire figure skating competition with no trouble). TF1 sucks so I really hope FranceTV keeps the rights :/