334 replies to this topic

[Durban Sandshark]

Kinda late to be joining these London forums. But there's still approximately two years to London's start. We already tapped into some things that we will reiterate and delve into more like the BBC's 5000+ hours of coverage for this endeavor. This September, NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol announced at the US Olympic Committee Assembly that NBC proper's coverage will increase by 25% with at least 200 hours in total. Coverage for the NBC sister cable networks will be by 100 hours more combined for London than for Beijing.

Nine Network already nabbed Australian supermarket chain Coles as the first prinicpal sponsor for its London 2012 coverage, reported from Switzerland as Nine picked up two Golden Rings Awards for its Vancouver coverage.

Hours ago, tourist body VisitBritain announced a partnership with NBC to "showcase Britain" that includes, among other things, promos on NBC to encourage Americans to travel to the UK. Precedent with NBC is already there as the network showed tourist commission ads from Spain and Australia leading up to NBC's coverage of the Games in those places.

[Durban Sandshark]

CTVglobemedia-Rogers Media's Olympic Consortium announces Coca-Cola as its first major broadcasting sponsor.
Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium Nabs Coca-Cola

I also heard from a couple of Brit customers at my retail job that the BBC will have Welsh-language coverage of London 2012. By the way, the BBC will actually broadcast 5800 hours of coverage. I'll delve more into that and others soon.

[Durban Sandshark]

I saw the NBC London 2012 logo yesterday on these forums in a separate thread here. I like it, but it's no surprise at all that Big Ben is prominent with the Union Jack in the background, icons of London Americans can instantly identify when thinking of it. Baron says it resembles a police badge. I can definitely see that, but I also think of a soccer club logo from overseas. Shape and all. Furthermore, I think we'll see the Olympic rings back on NBC as a bug on the one year countdown mark.

Looking forward to what CTV and its fellow members have cooking for their London 2012 broadcast logo. I'm thinking Big Ben again but in a different concept inside the circle. Will Nine and FOXTEL do likewise

Few months ago, I went over to Wikipedia and among the list was Sky Deutschland (formerly Premiere). And I thought, good, at least the Germans and Austrians will now have full coverage of events on TV instead of ZDF and ARD jumping and bouncing around events during their blocks. But the list has been revised greatly since. I do think Sky Deutschland will be a part of this for London though because its presence continues a trend toward getting as much complete or full Olympic coverage on TV as possible. For the World Cup, it aired lots of games, but it wasn't in Olympic-specific channels as it surely would be. We'll see.

Panasonic is one of the principal Olympic sponsors. So it's only natural that its DVCPRO HD video cameras and the P2 HD series will be used for the London 2012 Olympics broadcasts and digital recording, at least in the world feeds.
Panasonic DVCPRO HD Cameras Used for London 2012

[Durban Sandshark]

GM has been partnering with NBC as one of its primary sponsors since 2000, though it has aired commercials during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. In January, NBC and General Motors agreed to extend their partnership for London 2012. After that, with the US Olympic TV rights up for grabs in a more wide open manner, who knows?

GM and NBC renew their Olympic broadcast sponsorship

[Durban Sandshark]

Highlights of Nine Network's official kickoff gathering to their promotion and eventual broadcast of the London 2012 Olympics with a British-themed atmosphere in Sydney. I wouldn't be surprised if Nine again gets exclusivity of live coverage of both ceremonies at the Olympic Stadium. With FOXTEL doing coverage too, Aussies won't ever have to complain about jumping from event to event with some exceptions and just stick to them from start to finish like they had to endure with 7 or even 10. Furthermore, I can expect the London 2012 Nine promos that are surely in the planning stages right now will use the same style and narration on London's Australian Olympians like there was in with Vancouver's.



NBC's outlook into London 2012 narrated by Olympic primetime anchor Bob Costas



Highlights of Nine Network's official kickoff gathering to their promotion and eventual broadcast of the London 2012 Olympics with a British-themed atmosphere in Sydney. I wouldn't be surprised if Nine again gets exclusivity of live coverage of both ceremonies at the Olympic Stadium. With FOXTEL doing coverage too, Aussies won't ever have to complain about jumping from event to event with some exceptions and just stick to them from start to finish like they had to endure with 7 or even 10. Furthermore, I can expect the London 2012 Nine promos that are surely in the planning stages right now will use the same style and narration on London's Australian Olympians like there was in with Vancouver's.



NBC's outlook into London 2012 narrated by Olympic primetime anchor Bob Costas


[/quote]

Highlights of Nine Network's official kickoff gathering to their promotion and eventual broadcast of the London 2012 Olympics with a British-themed atmosphere in Sydney. I wouldn't be surprised if Nine again gets exclusivity of live coverage of both ceremonies at the Olympic Stadium. With FOXTEL doing coverage too, Aussies won't ever have to complain about jumping from event to event with some exceptions and just stick to them from start to finish like they had to endure with 7 or even 10. Furthermore, I can expect the London 2012 Nine promos that are surely in the planning stages right now will use the same style and narration on London's Australian Olympians like there was in with Vancouver's.



NBC's outlook into London 2012 narrated by Olympic primetime anchor Bob Costas



I screwed up big time on the first part regarding Nine. Here's the video:



I really, really screwed up big time and royally on Nine:

[Quaker2001]

You're right, Durban.. never too early for a London media thread. And since you brought up the NBC logo...



It does kinda look like a police badge (I've heard that mentioned elsewhere), but otherwise I think it works.

[Durban Sandshark]

I lack the know-how to paste the images on my own time, since I don't own one myself just yet. There are plans soon though.

It was mentioned already on this thread here on these very boards from our very own Baron-Pierre IV. Kinda does resemble a cop badge, yeah.

At this stage, though we are getting a little stuff about the hours of coverage from the bigger media outlets and the rights awarded piece by piece, things are still being planned by the broadcasters. Though, as you say, it's never too early to speculate and ponder on this matter. Part of the fun. Next week, I'll speculate on how the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium could broadcast the London 2012 Olympics to Canadians using Canadiansports' blog, among other things.

I almost drove myself crazy with my last thread trying in vain to upload properly Nine's London broadcast launch highlights. But here it is finally!

[Durban Sandshark]

Canadiansports, a fabulous member of these boards, wrote his still- very early projections of what the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium could air for their London 2012 coverage in February when the London 2012 event and time schedule went up. What I will do regarding that is do it in a series. First off, I pretty much agree with him on a lot of suggestions and projections on where events will be aired and how things will be broadcast with other commitments like giving priority to Toronto Blue Jays games on Rogers Sportsnet and CFL football on TSN. I do expect many of the same gang from the Vancouver 2010 Olympic coverage to return, especially Brian Williams, Claude Maihlot, Rick Harp, Waneek Horn-Miller, Charles Clement, Rod Black, and Catriona LeMay Doan. Because of array of events, obviously more so than in Vancouver, there will be different and more analysts. Furthermore, depending on the events that Canada qualifies in, the TV coverage overall in team sports could be small, though it could . Now if Canada qualifies in basketball, perhaps more so in women than in men, we can see some games on perhaps TSN along with the popular Team USA matches. If that's the case for women's basketball, I can see someone like Stacey Dales, Tammy Sutton-Brown, or Bev Smith providing the color. If the Canadian women qualifies for water polo, I can expect to see Waneek Horn-Miller covering it.

When you read his blog entry on London, you'll notice, if you pay any significant attention to its Vancouver coverage like here, OMNI, APTN, RDS, RDS Info Sports, V, and ATN were not mentioned at all there, let alone the French channels. I strongly believe Canadians will actually get a major increase in the London TV coverage than what was originally planned back in 2007 in terms of hours, particularly in the multilingual networks. Problem is, how many languages will get a share of the London coverage this time around. Vancouver had 22, and I expect more this time. I will use what had occured in Vancouver as a guide for London. German and Spanish were unfortunately excluded for the Vancouver multilingual coverage, but OMNI says they could be there for London. To try to make it easier IMO, why not try to negotiate with Telelatino to be added on as an additional member to the family? It can certainly take care of the Olympic coverage in daily multi-hour blocks and emulate what Telemundo in the USA and Puerto Rico has done since 2004, so as to not competing with other languages for time. Telelatino's got experience in sports having covered the 2010 FIFA World Cup in both Spanish and Italian (Italy games only in the latter), and it would cater to the growing Latin communities across Canada, especially by covering soccer, boxing, basketball (involving the Spanish-speaking nations), gymnastics, swimming, volleyball, tennis, and track and field. And can even air before the official start with the soccer.

Speaking of Waneek Horn-Miller, she could also do double duty as the London host for APTN's coverage. In the English language and some Mohawk, if possible. Again, I can see many of the people involved in the broadcasting to return having got some experience in sports broadcasting back in the APTN Winnipeg studios calling the action live in front of the HD digital flatscreens like Harp, Charles Clement, and Beauregard. Or they could get some younger faces to call select sports after a crash course. With APTN's portion of the coverage, I expect more of the same structure with select events to air like in Vancouver, emphasizing the Canadian Olympians, and, when necessary, Aboriginal Canadian athletes. The languages will again be regionalized depending on the area from North, West, and East. I do expect there will be more hours overall of block coverage each in English, French, and Aboriginal languages, likely almost nonstop with time for news breaking the Olympic coverage.

With digital TV being incorporated before London in Canada, could we see those subchannels using Olympic coverage for the likes of OMNI, APTN, or ATN to fill in the languages not used in the flagship? It's a given that Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese will get used. OMNI may be probrably where the multilingual coverage could get a boost. It's gotta have room for perhaps Korean, Italian, Russian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, Greek, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, Filipino, Czech, Dutch, Swedish, among them for specific events.

ATN's coverage wasn't as known much in Vancouver outside of the general stuff--and it's on multiple languages each with its own channel. I can assume with its large South Asian communities across Canada like Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, and Montreal that ATN will focus on Olympic sports that have great appeal to South Asians like field hockey, track and field, swimming, tennis, weightlifting, wrestling, and basketball. Like with OMNI and APTN, the sportscasters on ATN there will improve in quality.

We don't know for sure how many exactly internet streams or any plans for what languages used for the streaming outside of English and French will be used. Vancouver's streams were 14. Surely, there will be an increase to at least double that with the number of sports. Yeah, live streaming will appear and hopefully and actually our best best for multilingualism options on each event. For on-demand streaming, I think CTV and Co. should do a better job at this with providing more hours than the 600 provided for Vancouver. This time hopefully being more sophisticated like using slo-mo, multi-camera angles, audio soundtrack options, HD or SD, widescreen, along with the multiligual options. Furthermore, don't do the 12-hour embargo for events on-demand. I would very much like to see CTV do some Olympic podcasting coverage and get heavily involved with the smartphones and smart TVs now being sold in Canada.

Both ceremonies, track events like the men's and women's 100m and marathons, women's all around gymnastics, men's gold medal soccer game, and the gold medal men's basketball game will be in multiple languages, I expect. I'll delve more into this later, more into the English and French coverages and back to them from time to time, including the technologies.

[Durban Sandshark]

Wow! Dick Ebersol just resigned yesterday from his NBC Sports President job. This certainly makes things with the US TV Olympics from 2014-2018 bidding intersting. It won't affect NBC's London coverage too much except for the leadership and a little of the broadcast structure, because that were part of Dick's fingerprints. Comcast won't allow NBC go on a splurge for the Olympics like it did under him (I'm speculating here). I'll delve more later next week, mostly on that thread about his resignation.

Sydney's talk radio station 2GB 873 AM secured the national commercial rights to perform the Australian radio coverage of the London 2012 Summer Olympics some time ago. Most of the main Olympics events involving Aussies where they perform well, like swimming, will occur during the Australian breakfast time, the most lucrative time for advertisers. Former Australian swimming medalist Nicole Livingstone is a part of thist radio station, but she would very likely take part in Nine's Olympic swimming coverage like she has for years.

I'm really intrigued with the proliferation of the smart TVs that are hitting the market over the last year. How widespread are they in many of the western nations, so that they can get apps from the networks that broadcast their rights to the Games? Will there some access to radio coverage to them as there already will be Internet and social network synergy? I know the BBC has something like that, which I will look into soon, regarding its iPlayer apparatus.

[Quaker2001]

Durban Sandshark, on 20 May 2011 - 02:32 PM, said:

Wow! Dick Ebersol just resigned yesterday from his NBC Sports President job. This certainly makes things with the US TV Olympics from 2014-2018 bidding intersting. It won't affect NBC's London coverage too much except for the leadership and a little of the broadcast structure, because that were part of Dick's fingerprints. Comcast won't allow NBC go on a splurge for the Olympics like it did under him (I'm speculating here). I'll delve more later next week, mostly on that thread about his resignation.

It absolutely could affect NBC's London coverage. If someone else is in charge, they could completely change the dynamic of how they cover the Olympics, not to mention that Comcast has a cable network they'd love to prop up with an event like the Olympics. You're probably right that Comcast/NBC won't be as aggressive in the bidding as they might have been with Ebersol, but don't think that means they can't still win it.