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From the Guardian:
Discovery has paid $1.45 billion for the European (excluding Russia) rights to the Olympic Games starting in 2018, bumping off national broadcasters including the BBC, which have long held them. It's a major coup for the U.S. broadcaster as it looks to take a bigger part of the foreign TV market.
The Discovery chief executive, David Zaslav, told the Guardian that it would negotiate with the BBC and other broadcasters in the UK, France and Germany over potentially sub-licensing some of the rights.
"Part of our approach will be to strive to work with some of the best Olympic broadcast players. The BBC will have the chance to sub-licence some of the rights. We'll open up those discussions in every market," he said.
This sizable deal builds on a $7.5 billion no-bid contract signed last year by the US based NBC to broadcast the Olympics through 2032 in the United States.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Insightful) by scruffybeard on Tuesday June 30 2015, @11:45AM
I am with you. If you are not into gymnastics or ice skating, you can forget about any comprehensive coverage, especially if your home country is knocked out in an early round. I don't understand why they don't break the licensing up into smaller pieces. Forgetting internet streaming for the moment, with all the various cable channels available, I would think that some of the minor channels would jump at the opportunity to cover the equestrian or shooting sports events that see almost no air time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday June 30 2015, @03:56PM
When the digital terrestrial HD channels started and people didn't really watch them yet, the first olympics (2000?) were available on them very lightly edited and often live.
Used to hang out at a friend's place to watch them, because it was already unbearable to try to watch NBC's "ad-USA-ad-ad-ad-USA-ad-ad" delayed evening broadcast.
Does the average Joe realize that there are lots of events they never get to see because the broadcaster hasn't found a "look at our sponsored champion" angle?