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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: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:38PM
Its an American thing to ruin a simple sports broadcast.
I read your link and flashed back to Japanese torrents of the original Unbeatable Banzuke TV show, like a decade ago. Compare it with the USA American Ninja Warrior and they crap it all up with 3 minutes of commercials for old people prescriptions, 2 minute mini-docudramas about some losers difficult home life (I'm tired of being told to give a F), 5 seconds of him falling off the course repeated three times, then back to commercials and repeat till the end of the show, all with continuous seasickness and nausea inducing animations. Japanese style sports coverage is about a million times cooler and more interesting and enjoyable to watch.
Its a narrowcasting thing. That 1% of the population who likes shit, really likes shitty hyper optimized for that 1% TV. Of course the other 99% of the population absolutely can't stand it. The Japanese version only weakly appeals to about 20% of the population. My whole family including parents watched Sasuke with me. I don't remember why it got cancelled, I think someone in Japan got killed on the course, but possibly only weakly appealing to 20% of the population vs 1% of the population being crazy fans might have something to do with it.
I wonder if Japanese olympics coverage is superior to the USA version and if so how I could get access. I'm a pretty creative guy so I can probably figure out how to illegally watch Japanese sports coverage if I want.
Probably a better comparison to shitty "american ninja warrior" is torrents of original Japanese "Sasuke". I can barely understand what they're saying on a good day with my awesome one semester of Japanese language and still the .jp version kicks the butt of the .us coverage. I'm tempted to go look for some downloads right now.... I haven't watched Sasuke in like 5 years.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:39PM
My whole family including parents watched Sasuke with me. I don't remember why it got cancelled, I think someone in Japan got killed on the course
I am searching now and that was Unbeatable Banzuke that got cancelled. Sasuke is still on. And I think I'm going to "obtain" some copies of last season.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Tuesday June 30 2015, @09:17PM
You have made my wife and my night. Back in 2011 the producers of the show went bankrupt, and then American Ninja Warrior came out, and we thought that was the end of that. I don't really care for the American version as they don't treat it like the gauntlet run it should be. But seeing that after they went bankrupt their parent company picked them up and has been producing new matches yearly!!! WOOT! The next one appears to be airing tomorrow!
Awesome sauce!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 30 2015, @09:52PM
If you find a legal way to watch in .us at a sane price, post details. I'm willing to pay the $15 the inferior americanized version wants per season on amazon instant video, but I'd be willing to pay a bit more for the "genuine" .jp version. I would not be interested in ordering an imported DVD box set from 7 years ago costing $200 plus shipping or whatever. If I can't find a legal way to get recent content at a sane price, well, those problems do have (illegal) solutions, and I suspect I'll have no serious difficulty watching the new season. Perhaps there is some semi-obscure streaming service that offers it very quietly that I haven't discovered. Come on media companies, stop pissing me off, I've got fat stacks of cash and I hear you like money...
I've been thinking of going FTA free to air satellite for, oh, I donno 20 years now. So all I need is an excuse. Unfortunately NHK is C band so I'd need a rather large dish and I donno if they distribute Sasuke on NHK satellite feed anyway. So I strike out again, AFAIK FTA satellite isn't gonna do it. I have a bad habit of curiosity and about 10 times I've almost pulled the trigger and set up a FTA system but I never quite do it. I'd have to figure out how to integrate it with mythtv and schedulesdirect etc etc.