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London 2012 Olympic Media Updates


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Add NBCUniversal Media to the list of clients Deltratre has in its pocket along with the BBC for the London 2012 Olympics. Deltatre's role for NBC will partner it for the network's third straight Olympics.

http://thedrum.co.uk/news/2011/10/19/nbcuniversal-media-partners-deltatre-nbc-olympics-website

Britain's Press Association will send a pool of 90 reporters to cover every minute of the London 2012 Olympics at every venue.

http://thedrum.co.uk/news/2011/09/23/pa-staff-pool-90-set-cover-every-minute-2012-olympics

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Rove McManus, straight from LA, makes known that he will definitely be involved as a key figure with FOXTEL's London 2012 Olympic Games coverage through its eight Olympic channels.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/-/television/10875537/fox-hounds-nine-for-games/

Looking forward to see if and how the new Sportsnet magazine in Canada will cover the London Olympics.

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A small update on NBC's plans for London:

http://www.multichannel.com/article/476496-Lazarus_NBC_Sports_Network_Changes_Will_Be_Done_Well_Not_Fast_.php

There will be over 1700 hours of TV coverage on NBC, NBC Sports Network, CNBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo. Unlike 2004-2010, USA Network will not have any Olympic coverage in 2012.

Been a while since I appeared here on my hallmark posts. Been very busy these days, especially with the holidays coming up.

Thanks for the update on NBC's London Olympic coverage, Barcelona 92. It is indeed an overall increase from the 1400 TV hours four years ago in Beijing, an increase of 400 hours. I do think NBC Sports Network will be where the bulk of hours will lie in all the networks involved. I could be very wrong on that regard. Furthermore, in order to get viewers attracted to the recent rebranding from Versus and make it mean something, this would be where, I think, we'll see the Team USA sports games like basketball, soccer, and field hockey. No doubt starting from Thanksgiving, NBC Sports will get hyped up. Telemundo should get an increase in Spanish coverage (would like to see that get both ceremonies after witnessing how CTV/RDS did the bilingualism in Vancouver). I do anticipate many, if not all, of the NBC broadcast teams in the Olympic sports from Beijing will return for London. When you look at it, it is no surprise that USA Network has dropped out of the Olympic coverage this time with that entity gradually pulling out of sports, as several of us have noted here on these boards. Especially now with USA lost the TV rights to the US Open to ESPN. Looking forward to how the sports will be broken down among the networks.

CTV's senior digital director Mark Silver has a message to TV Olympic broadcaster holders regarding the Games: make the Internet an ally to the TV, NOT as its rival; the numbers were higher online than on TV. There will be improvements to what the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium will do online from Vancouver. London's footage will be same highlight content from the thousand of hours in clips but less reliant on the broadcasting systems with even all the rough cuts digitally encoded with greater on-demand access available opn all devices without the need for the broadcast. Everything will be based at various areas across Canada with numerous stand-up spots in London and the IBC studios.

http://www.tvbeurope.com/newslettersportsbroadcast-content/full/ctv-plans-digital-olympic-delivery

BBC exec Peter Salmon doesn't regret the BBC move to Salford Quays well before it becomes the nerve center for BBC's London 2012 Olympic coverage next year:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8857155/The-BBCs-outlook-for-Salford-is-sunny.html

Roger Mosey discusses what kind of London 2012 Olympic legacy the BBC will have after the circus left town. There's some projects planned like giving experience to British students in the media, the London Apprentices, and in the arts department:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/rogermosey/2011/11/the_bbcs_legacy_from_the_2012.html

The UK, Japan, and the USA will be among the three nations will enjoy the Super Hi-Vision London 2012 broadcast coverage at public screenings from the BBC, NHK, and NBC, respectively. In the US, make arrangements for a trip to Washington, DC.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/13/2012-london-olympics-super-hi-vision-broadcast-coming-to-se/

Tax incentives from Connecticut lured NBC Sports to move its headquarters to the Nutmeg State at an old Clariol factory in Stamford. Thus becoming a rival neighbor to ESPN (watch out, "worldwide leader in sports"). But not everythings out of NBC Sports will make the move.

http://www.newscaststudio.com/blog/2011/10/27/nbc-sports-lured-to-connecticut/

Photos from the FOXTEL London 2012 Olympic coverage launch in Sydney. The Australian FOXTEL coverage will be on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on 8 channels each in HD. All broadcasts in full, including every Aussie sport, matches, and medal event live. Of course it will report from its London studios at Olympic Park:

http://www.throng.com.au/foxtel/one-year-go-foxtels-coverage-london-2012-olympic-games

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukinaustralia/sets/72157627763482771/with/6241586409/

The CVM TV Group is the exclusive broadcaster for the London 2012 Summer Olympics in Jamaica. CVM bought those rights from the International Media Content Ltd., which, through SportsMax, holds the Olympic TV rights throughout the Caribbean:

http://www.trackalerts.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3954:cvm-tv-acquires-exclusive-olympics-broadcast-rights-from-imc&catid=3806:lead-stories&Itemid=82

Interesting. James Cameron, Vince Pace, and 40 3D cameras at London?

http://www.tvbeurope.com/newsletter-3dmasters-content/full/cpg-plans-40-camera-3d-event-olympics-2012

EVS helps out with the OBS in the workflow of all those 5000+ hours for London:

http://www.tvbeurope.com/newslettersportsbroadcast-content/full/olympics-2012-host-production-advances

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Great little vid that, the BBC opening sequences from 1984. Can't wait to see what they come up with for 2012, but good start in getting Elbow to do the theme song.

yeah saw that - nice one! really good choice!

one day like this - was played on the bbc at beijing (intrumental version) and for me always reminds me of beijing!

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BBC One Daily Coverage:

  • 0600-0900: Bill Turnbull, Hazel Irvine, Sian Williams or Chris Hollins (two presenters at a time)
  • 0900-1130: Mishal Husain
  • 1130-1345: Matt Baker or Hazel Irvine or Clare Balding
  • 1345-1600: Jake Humphrey or Hazel Irvine or Clare Balding
  • 1600-1900: Sue Barker
  • 1900-2235: Gary Lineker
  • 2235-2400: Gabby Logan
  • Live presentation throughout the day from key venues with Matt Baker, Clare Balding, Jonathan Edwards, Jake Humphrey, John Inverdale and other presenters to be announced later.

BBC THREE Coverage:

  • Until 1900: Manish Bhasin, Rishi Persad and Sonali Shah
  • 1900-2300: Jake Humphrey

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BBC anounces the presenters and daily lineup of progs during the olympics.

Huw Edwards is commentating on the opening and closing - groan!

BBC

Don't panic, Roger Mosey has been answering questions about this on Twitter:

RM: "More details will follow but you should have at least 3 options on commentary for Opening."

Q: "I take it one will be a stadium feed (i.e. commentary free)?"

RM: "Yes, should be. But there may be 2 other TV variants as well as radio."

http://twitter.com/#!/rogermosey

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Don't panic, Roger Mosey has been answering questions about this on Twitter:

RM: "More details will follow but you should have at least 3 options on commentary for Opening."

Q: "I take it one will be a stadium feed (i.e. commentary free)?"

RM: "Yes, should be. But there may be 2 other TV variants as well as radio."

http://twitter.com/#!/rogermosey

thank the lord - however i may be performing in the opening - fingers crossed!

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Ridiculous how he is defending Huw Edwards and saying focus groups back him when he has been unanimously slammed for his efforts in Beijing and Delhi. Not impressed either Gary Lineker gets the peaktime slot when he's had no Olympic involvement since Atlanta 1996.

If it was down to me I'd have:

6-9am Breakfast with Bill Turnbill and Gabby Logan (covering news and sport)

9am-1.45pm Claire Balding and Jake Humphrey

1.45pm-7pm Sue Barker and Gary Lineker

7pm-12m'n John Inverdale and Hazel Irvine - easily the best two all round sports hosts the BBC have.

And for the ceremonies I'd have John and Sue lead the broadcast with Hazel leading the commentary.

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Seems to me that when the pre-Opening Ceremony soccer matches hit that Gary Lineker naturally will anchor those with his selected team of soccer studio analysts and the commentating teams at the stadiums across the UK before he takes the BBC One daily evening peaktime Olympic portion. It will interesting to see how he'll cover that when it's outside his soccer element.

Three open space London areas will have big screen BBC coverage of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as part of London Live. No surprise with the massive Hyde Park. I like that Victoria Park will adopt a sports cafe atmosphere with multiple small screens along with two big ones. Trafalgar Square will do the Paralympics as the attention shifts there for that. Don't be surprised to see BBC reporting live from those areas, especially with the Opening Ceremonies or whenever Team GB gets a gold medal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15854694

London Olympics will no doubt a major role in the BBC's TV programming leading up to the start of the Summer Olympics. BBc will put out all the stops in this one to get Brits aware like they haven't done so already. It will be major in storylines on shows like EastEnders for example. Twenty Twelve will retrun. Wasn't announced in it but I couldn't be shocked if Wenlock and Mandeville get themselves a kids' TV series like the Fuwa did for Beijing and Misha (with Baba Yaga Against!) in Moscow before them. I think it's being developed as I write this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15858869

Music galore for the BBC's Olympic year with the London Olympic Music Festival (its "biggest free live music event"), not just Elbow. Bigger than Live Aid, perhaps? We'll see.

http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2011/11/27/bbc-2012-olympics-london-music-festival-elbow/

BBC announce its (experimental) 3D Olympic plans with 24 live streams for the Internet that will be of course geo-blocked. Hopefully they will on-demand in their entirety in the UK:

http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2011/12/07/bbc-reveals-3donline-olympics-strategy/

Yesterday, CTV Olympics reported from its Facebook page that Rick Hansen is currently shooting the Summer Olympics version of the Difference Makers with the intros at the CTV studios in Toronto.

A promo announcing the arrival of the NBC Sports Network on January 2 (with an intense pregame Alexander Ovechkin at his Capitals clubhouse) out of the ashes of Versus that will be apparently the anchor cable Olympic sports hub for London 2012 in the NBC family. Just to let you know it's coming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Xgh8MPtLftE

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Eurosport's London plans, its 12th Olympics, include 380 hours of live HD bias-free pan-European coverage (that includes 10 hours of live events daily) with a staff of 75 in 11 languages across Europe. Also announced, as expected, a series of pre-Olympic programming, magazine shows, and news flashes. Plus, online, cell/mobile phone coverage, and social networking.

http://svgeurope.org/2011/08/02/eurosport-first-out-of-olympic-traps/

http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/2011072813947/eurosport-fires-starting-gun-for-2012-olympic-games.html

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The following is document from BBC Africa Bureau editor Peter Burdin in Nairobi on the BBC's plans on London and how, among other things, it will develop an African angle.

http://aitec.usp.net/Broadcast%20&%20Film%20Africa,%205-6%20July%202011,%20Nairobi/Peter%20Burdin,%20BBC,%20Broadcast&FilmAfrica_6-7July2011,Nairobi.pdf

BBC's MediaCentre opens at Salford Quay:

http://www.how-do.co.uk/north-west-media-news/north-west-broadcasting/bbc-sport-centre-opens-at-mediacity-today-20111205100956069

I'm confused. The BBC originally said it will broadcast 5000 hours overall on TV, Freeview/iPlayer, online, and mobile. Now, I'm hearing these days it will be 2500 hours. Can someone fill me in on this?

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It's the Sport MediaCentre in Salford that will serve as the headquarters for BBC's Olympic coverage, to be clear.

Hours ago, Supersport in South Africa, with apparent consent and negotiations with SABC, announced it has grabbed the South African cable TV rights to the London 2012 Olympic Games that will be transmitted all throughout Africa. The sports network will devote themselves to the Olympics with multiple TV channels in its stable (as it has done with recent Olympics) including a 24-hour channel and another for HD. To keep with the seemingly bias-free footage and not to neglect the African audiences, it struck a deal with the IOC to use its feeds for its coverage with 14 hours of live coverage daily. Supersport Blitz will have live Olympic news and updates direct from London. Already it's getting ready for London with a weekend preview series entitled London Calling with guests and athletes. Since it likes to present itself as an African network these days, four Supersport news crews will report from London specifically following Olympic teams from South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya (three of the more powerful English-speaking African nations) with daily reports.

But you'll notice that this is only for DSTV Multichoice subscribers. Don't know if those who aren't will get the privileges. If not, this could like those who do not have DIRECTV for Vancouver and London and got the Dish Network instead and got lucked out from DIRECTV had to offer with its partnership with NBC. Also, like with Beijing, I do expect there will be Portuguese-language coverage for it on Supersport Maximo and Maximo 2 with an emphasis on the Portuguese-speaking Olympians (for Mozambique and Angola, namely). Don't know if the ceremonies shown on Maximo had Portuguese commentary (like OMNI did in Canada in Vancouver). I do think it will expand from that. I find it interesting that there is no Afrikaans language Olympics coverage on Supersport as of yet. Perhaps that will be addressed later on in the new year as we get closer to the start of the Games and likely focus on the Afrikaner Olympians making up the South African Olympic team for London.

As for SABC, it can't be any worse than how it botched and ignored Vancouver over a year ago by giving that just daily highlights and both ceremonies on SABC 3. I know, South Africa is not a Winter Olympics powerhouse and very likely never will be. But in Torino, South Africans enjoyed comprehensive Olympic coverage on Supersport. It will be different with London; coverage on SABC 3 through SABC Sport, I expect, will be more in terms of hours than last year's Commonwealth Games. But it will never be mistaken for Supersport's.

http://www.channel24.co.za/TV/News/SuperSport-grabs-2012-Olympic-Games-20111213

If FOXTEL's Vancouver was an indicator, I would presume we will see the 8 channels it will use to be named after specific points of London--Piccadilly, Trafalgar, Westminster, Highbury, Wembley, Wimbeldon. For the Nine Network, I can see the return of those promos that use the photo technology like they used for Vancouver on the likes of Stephanie Rice, Lauren Jackson, Jana Rawlinson, Alicia Coutts, Andrew Bogut, and Patrick Mills. For an example, here's the promo on aerials gold medalist Lydia Lassila.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQjkf3Caixo'>http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQjkf3Caixo

Six specific events Olympic channels plus one montage Olympic channel that will allow Kiwis to choose will represent Sky Sport TV New Zealand's coverage

I would like to know more about the rebranding for NBC Sports Network from Versus and perhaps find out about any promos involving the Olympics from Multichannel News. But I have to be a subscriber for it.

Normally, many European broadcasters tend to wait until we get deep into the new year on the latest developments on their Olympic coverage plans for London, but some nations' broadcasters already have a jump on that for now.

SKY Italia will go with 1600 hours of Olympic programming over its numerous channels. RAI will go for at least 200.

Rede Record over in Brazil already has its Olympic page well up for it has the TV rights to the London Olympics. Go check it out and it has those Olympic Minute videos.

So too has Danmark Radio (DR) with its very nice London Olympic webpage: http://www.dr.dk/Sporten/OL2012/20110725132047.htm

France Televisions Olympic webpage: http://sport.francetv.fr/jo

In early October, France Televisions announced it will air over 400 hours (with 220 of it live) of Olympic coverage from London to the French market that will be spread through France 2, France 3, France 4, and France O. Coverage will go from 9am to midnight France time. There's also a chance for advertisers to sponsor the Olympic Picture of the Day and lots of space for advertising online.

Findland's YLE plans to air 450 hours of London Olympic TV coverage on two YLE channels YLE2 and YLE3 (I think) with an additional 200 hours aired on YLE Radio as part of its extended contract up until Rio 2016. Swedish commentary coverage will be forthcoming on FST5.

http://avoinyle.fi/www/en/index.php?we_objectID=473

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQjkf3Caixo

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A closer look at how women in the BBC are outnumbering the men as sports presenters during the BBC's coverage of next year's Summer Olympic coverage, once the sole domain of men. Intersting that it was announced coming in the midst of recent charges of sexism like with the lack of female contenders for British Athlete of the Year and plans for British women athletes to boycott that. The depth and quality of the women sportscasters should be there.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069394/Women-elbow-men-BBC-Olympic-coverage.html

On Virgin Media in the UK hoping for BBC Olympic coverage? Well, now there's going to be an on-demand app for that on TiVo! :)

http://www.digitalspy.com/media/news/a356630/virgin-media-to-launch-bbc-sport-app-on-tivo-service.html

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/News/EmailThisArticle/1109750/Virgin-Media-scores-BBC-Sport-time-Olympics

Even with coverage going to be live more often than it has ever been whenever NBC covers the non-North American Olympics, ZenithOptimedia Jonathan Brand projects Olympic ad sales for NBC will fall by 1%. He explains why.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Media_economy_57/As-the-year-ends-promising-glimmers.asp

ARD's Olympia 2012 site. Not much to see except for past stats and some essential knowledge like from London-based correspondent Frank Kahn

http://olympia.ard.de/london2012/index.html

Announced today in Sydney, Sky News Australia, a member of the FOXTEL family, assign Matt Shirvington and James Bracey, both roving reporters for Vancouver and Delhi last year for FOXTEL, to be hosts of an still-unnamed weekly Olympic-themed show, starting from Sydney and then later on site in London:

http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2011/12/20/sky-news-for-olympic-themed-sports-show/

NBC's London Olympic preview-like promo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epaC6qmohms

London's 2012 Home Is/The Heartbeat commercial:

Don't be surprised to see Prince William and Kate Middleton (and perhpas sis Pippa) appear at the Olympic Stadium with numerous shots of them during the Opening Ceremony on TV all over the world.

Barring any new media developments during the holidays involving the London Olympics, to which I doubt, I think this will be it for this year. New developments surely will arrive leading up London.

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NBC Sports execs found out in their research they really should have to worry, now that Mark Lazarus is in charge, about the Internet and cell phones cannabilizing the London Olympics TV viewership, if the upcoming Super Bowl in Indianapolis is any indication. Though we still don't quite know any further official info on the NBC Internet plans for the Olympics aside from being live on every event on at least one platform, we will know significant improvements and features from Beijing and Vancouver. I just don't hope there won't those restrictions that favor DIRECTV.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/supersized_bowl_3qjihnhp7aAyE6oh4LIFiP

South Africa's Supersport Olympic programming commenced on December 16 with legacy programming. Again, it will air 26 Olympic sports. It will also feature an Internet London Olympic presence. Right now, it starts with Spirit of London, Road To London, and some Paralympic events building up to the Opening Ceremony on July 27.

You could look at this as a rebranding up north of the border from the US like Versus becoming NBC Sports Network. RDS will birth RDS2, but RDS INFO will replace RDS Info Sports in a similar state early next year too. Both will be 24-hour digital sports channels. The press release announcing this says nothing about the Olympics later on in July, but we can expect greater hours from the two.

http://www.bellmediapr.ca/RDS/releases/release.asp?id=13904&yyyy=2011

This is the opening graphics for TyC Sports Argentina show "Rumbo A Londres". If you knew about their coverage in Beijing and Vancouver, it largely dominated the TV hours down there. I think it's time that TyC Sports attempted to have another sports channel for those who could get sick of the wall-to-wall Olympic coverage.

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Brian Williams, CTV's Olympic Primetime host for London and Vancouver and really the anchor host of the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, earns the Order of Canada as among the 66 inductees this year which includes legendary hockey coach Scotty Bowman!

http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id=383805

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...and Hayley Wickenheiser

(first post of the Olympic year here)

We're now into the London 2012 Olympic year, everybody! Surely we'll get lots of info in the coming months on how the broadcasters worldwide will deal with the London Olympic coverage. For many European networks outside of the bigger ones like Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, it usually takes several months before the start of the games to make their plans public. But with Summer Olympic being bigger in scope and scale, news will be hopefully faster.

Yes, Versus is now NBC Sports Network starting with NBC Sports Talk, the '72 Summit Series documentary, and the 2012 NHL Winter Classic between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers in Philly's Citizens Bank Park at 3pm yesterday. No doubt, NBC Sports Network will play an important role in the NBC Universal family of networks London 2012 Olympic coverage, and the channel will surely promote the hell out of that along with the Tour de France, MLS soccer, and NHL hockey as the anchor sports for this year. But we can only still speculate on what its official Olympic TV plans are. I do think as Quaker2001 says here that as the premier Olympic sports network for NBC, we will get around 220 hours from it. The as-yet-determined sports will be diverse on it somewhat, to be sure, but I suspect there will be anchor ones due to its limited reach in households in comparison to MSNBC, USA (not part of the family this time around and likely ever), and CNBC. That will change rapidly, I'm sure. Because of all that, NBC Sports president Mark Lazarus says the network will center on Team USA in its Olympic coverage, perhaps more so than USA ever did.

https://bangordailynews.com/2012/01/02/sports/another-name-change-versus-to-nbc-sports-network/

In a related story, Universal Sports, a junior partner in the London Olympics coverage that can only do news and highlights, restricts its availability as it moves away from over-the-air terrestrial television and onto just digital cable and satelitte subscribers like DIRECTV yesterday at the time of the NBC Sports Channel rebranding. NBC says this supposedly paves the way for greater visibility towards NBC Sports.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=18723705&title=nbc-cuts-universal-sports-availability

The first look from BBC's Roger Mosey's blog of the three-dimensional BBC official Olympic broadcaster block logo that we will be seeing this year that will be used a lot and even change colors when needed. Mosey adds this is all part of the rich history and context the year 2012 will add to the BBC television in its 76 years of existence that will be referenced all throughout the year in everything the Beeb does, not just sports, to excite the widest range of people possible. Just think: back in 1948 when London last hosted the Summer Olympics, the BBC paid 1000 pounds for 60 hours of TV coverage total including both ceremonies. My, how things have changed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/rogermosey/2012/01/anticipating_the_bbcs_2012_cov.html?postId=111307742

ZDF tries to get German advertisers on boards for the new year, especially with the London Summer Olympics, with a ZDF roadshow and an Olympic-style presentation in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, and Dusseldorf in November with some notable German track athletes in tow.

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?ref=SERP&br=ro&mkt=en-US&dl=en&lp=DE_EN&a=http%3a%2f%2fwww.horizont.net%2faktuell%2fmedien%2fpages%2fprotected%2fProgrammpraesentation-2012-ZDF-stimmt-Werbekunden-auf-Olympia-ein_103945.html

Alan Jones, Australian Sports Commission deputy director, and Ray Hadley are among the personalities to cover Sydney's 2GB's Olympic coverage on Australian radio.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/future-looking-golden-12-months-out-from-the-olympics-in-london/story-e6freuy9-1226101564812

Octagon picks up the non-exclusive Sub-Saharan African terrestrial television, radio and mobile phone platform broadcasting rights for the 2012 London Summer Olympics right around Christmas Day! What kind of role will it play with the SABC, already working with Sub-Saharn African Olympic TV plans for London like it did with Vancouver, remains to be seen. Will SABC just focus on South Africa for terrestrial TV because of this new development?

http://afrisport.com/2011/12/octagon-lands-london-2012-olympics-broadcast-rights-for-sub-saharan-africa/

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Yes, Versus is now NBC Sports Network starting with NBC Sports Talk, the '72 Summit Series documentary, and the 2012 NHL Winter Classic between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers in Philly's Citizens Bank Park at 3pm yesterday. No doubt, NBC Sports Network will play an important role in the NBC Universal family of networks London 2012 Olympic coverage, and the channel will surely promote the hell out of that along with the Tour de France, MLS soccer, and NHL hockey as the anchor sports for this year. But we can only still speculate on what its official Olympic TV plans are. I do think as Quaker2001 says here that as the premier Olympic sports network for NBC, we will get around 220 hours from it. The as-yet-determined sports will be diverse on it somewhat, to be sure, but I suspect there will be anchor ones due to its limited reach in households in comparison to MSNBC, USA (not part of the family this time around and likely ever), and CNBC. That will change rapidly, I'm sure. Because of all that, NBC Sports president Mark Lazarus says the network will center on Team USA in its Olympic coverage, perhaps more so than USA ever did.

https://bangordailynews.com/2012/01/02/sports/another-name-change-versus-to-nbc-sports-network/

Good find, Durban. Hadn't seen elsewhere about them making the proclamation that NBCSN is the number 2 outlet, but this confirms it. Considering that everything is going to be live "on one platform or another," they'll probably be on live from morning til night with whatever the best action is. Save of course for whatever NBC is saving for primetime (although who knows how that will change now). Still a lot of questions to be answered, but this does lay out just how important NBCSN is to them.

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Good find, Durban. Hadn't seen elsewhere about them making the proclamation that NBCSN is the number 2 outlet, but this confirms it. Considering that everything is going to be live "on one platform or another," they'll probably be on live from morning til night with whatever the best action is. Save of course for whatever NBC is saving for primetime (although who knows how that will change now). Still a lot of questions to be answered, but this does lay out just how important NBCSN is to them.

We can safely assume that both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, the men's and women's 100m sprint finals, men's and women's relay finals, men's and women's gymnastics team and individual all-arounds, the swimming relays, men's and women's swimming 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, the men's gold medal basketball final (though that could be aired live), men's and women's volleyball gold medal finals, men's and women's beach volleyball finals, and some diving all will be reserved for NBC's primetime portion.

I meant to say 3pm CT from my last post regarding NBC Sports.

I wonder if NBC will feature a London Summer Olympic preview show, something that hasn't been done since Barcleona. Maybe it might get restricted towards Universal Sports.

Apparently, Oxygen is not part of the Olympic plans either as of right now.

When former NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol mentioned NBC proper will air more than 200 hours of Olympic coverage with the cable NBC networks partnering get a boost of 100 additional hours, I was wondering exactly how much eventually that will be official. If Athens and Beijing were indicators, we can see NBC making around 225 hours if not more. NBC's Beijing portion was 225, and he said there will be a 25% increase. So that means, under this logic, NBC will get 275-280 hours. But since Ebersol left to make way for Mark Lazarus at that same post, could Lazarus actually expand the hours for all the networks? Realistically, I can't see NBC emulating what CTV is doing for Vancouver and London by going around the clock with its Olympic coverage, even with the time blocks, to 22 hours a day departing temporarily for both national and local news. NBC may try that, but I think it will be difficult to accomplish when it wants to reserve some of the top-drawing events for US TV audiences to primetime. The following is subject to change, and I could be wrong for it. I do think all of them will reach the century mark in terms of hours. But the following is my speculation on the hours based on recent trends:

NBC--230 hours

NBC Sports--225 hours

MSNBC--195 hours

CNBC--132 hours

TELEMUNDO--420 hours

Oxygen and Universal Sports aren't part of it becuase the latter doesn't air any Olympic hours since it's not wholly part of the Comcast-NBCU family, and we don't know officially if Oxygen is going to be a part of it.

Will MSNBC starts things off again with the airing of men's and women's Olympic preliminary soccer matches, or will it defer them this time to NBC Sports, since it likes to view itself now as the hub of Olympic sports? I do expect we will see the return of the Olympic Basketball and Olympic Soccer Channels, though.

Will we see the return of the Korean and Chinese language coverage like we did for Beijing? There was very little information of that even during the games--it wasn't even on the NBC press releases regarding the Beijing Olympics coverage. I would like to see more multilingual coverage on the London Olympics like Canada has; if it was only going to be online only with mulitple languages like German, Arabic, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Hindi, Italian, etc., except for Spanish and possibly Chinese and Korean, that's fine.

Speaking of the mulitilingualism, I suspect with APTN this time up in Canada, along with airing selected Olympic events that hold a lot of appeal with the Aboriginal Canadians, it will try to focus on the progress of Canadian Olympians in London who happen to be Aboriginal like boxer Mary Spencer. ATN will zero in on Olympic sports with strong South Asian appeal like field hockey and maybe shooting. Bigger sports like some soccer, basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, swimming, and track and field, along with both ceremonies will get play on those including OMNI. I'll delve with them more as time goes by. Now that I just mentioned OMNI, based on what we know about those networks' Vancouver coverage, I believe in their format with the ceremonies that Canadians will see the coverage divided among the languages for a time. That is, Italian and Portuguese for the first half and then Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese for the latter on OMNI (like in Vancouevr), for example. Punjabi and Hindi could be called for ATN's coverage. APTN's language coverage of that will get divided regionally--West, North, Central, and East. Gonna interesting how they will do this massive undertaking. Hopefully, more languages will be on the roster.

Here's how ESPN Star Sports Asia will handle the London Olympics throughout West (starting from Afghanistan), South, and Southeast Asia, including Macau, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, and French Polynesia (for English-language broadcasts only on those). I know it plans to air at least 200 hours, but it doesn't even seem to enough by today's standards. Maybe it will expand on the coverage with specific channels later. It also says it will delve into the 30,000-hours of Olympic archives to air golden Olympic moments from the last two decades. I also thought, since Papua New Guinea was a former Australian territory, it will get the Australian coverage:

http://www.businesswireindia.com/PressRelease.asp?b2mid=27700

Its little promo kicking off the countdown to London campaign with flaming athletes rise in various sports symbolizing the Olympic passion with sparks from the Olympic torch also forming the Olympic rings:

Rede Record's brief promo announcing itself as the official Brazilian broadcaster of the London 2012 Olympics

I think with Octagon Media's getting the rights for Sub-Saharan Africa, the various TV networks there, likely government-owned, will buy them. Or maybe customize the coverage to be put into English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic. Surely we'll know more as we get closer.

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CCTV's plans for the London 2012 Summer Olympics have yet to be made as the exclusive Olympic broadcaster on all various platforms there. Perhaps we can easily speculate that the Chinese will get the same amount of hours like they did back when they were the hosts, if not more. I do think it will be spread again on the CCTV channels like CCTV-1, CCTV-2, CCTV-5 (the sports channel), CCTV-7, and CCTV HD. We may see the return of the tennis channel and perhaps, with the massive popularity of basketball there, a channel devoted to the sport too, along with one just for soccer. Surely later this new year, CCTV-5 will again officially designate itself as the 24-hour Olympic network like Beijing before it with lots of Olympic-related programming running up to the start like archival footage from past Games and the torch relay across Britain. It's possible that CCTV-1 will deal with the panoramic aspects of the Games by including both ceremonies. For further clues, check out this dating from the leadup from Beijing, mostly centering on CCTV-5, that I wished I could've went into back then to link. Internet plans will be forthcoming on the CCTV website.

There has yet to be any distinct details pertaining to the newer technologies like the iPads and tablets, and how the Olympic media rights holders will utilize them. We do know that the BBC just offered its 24 Olympic streams on Virgin Media for the BBC Sport app. We can confirm that the likes of CTV, ARD/ZDF, and NBC will do likewise. But as far as iPods are concerned, there's nothing as of yet. Podcasts pertaining to the London Olympics will be nice and even customized coverage that people can purchase on at iTunes and Amazon. Olympic media rights holders obviously would be foolish not to join on in for those; it didn't happen back in Beijing and it happened a little bit for Vancouver.

SporTV in Brazil released some initial info in mid-August for their plans on their 2012 London Summer Olympics broadcast: It will bring back all four Olympic-specific subscriber channels, all in HD and in standard definition, with complete coverage from start to finish. Sportscaster from Redaction SporTV Marcelo Barreto will leave for London with his family and start reporting from there on June 28 as its correspondent. He will report on the changes London made since being awarded the Games. Along with that, SporTV's Olympic programming will feature on a monthly basis like Olympics: Brazil 2012 (focusing on the current developments of the 2012 Brazilian Olympic team) and Road To London

Romania had Telesport to act as the cable/pay-TV broadcaster to compliment TVR back in Beijing. Yet to see how it could return for London. Ukraine had Megasport as the cable sports channel. But it never aired any of the Olympic footage as far as I could find about them. It since changed its format from sports to more adventure, nature, history, and men's interest as simply Mega. Maybe it could for London and Ukrainian TV viewers could have an alternative outside of Ukrainian National TV (1TV).

Though I and others wlll delve more into the Internet and apps for the Olympics as we go along. Olympic media consumers should, as always indicated earlier from that CTV Olympic website link, to customize the raw footage from the competition to and set things up to their liking online. That should be tops. For the likes of the USA, Canada, and the UK media rights holders at least, there ought to be multilingual coverage options. We can expect multiple camera angles online like maybe pool cam to see the swimmers overhead, goal cam for sports, venue-only audio, runner level-cam, bench reaction angles, among others. Something fun to speculate as we go by.

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Perhaps the best way yet outside of online streams in the US for NBC for the lower profile field events in track and field to get proper coverage lies with NBC Sports Network. We know for sure that it will be the premier cable sports hub for the NBC Universal-Comcast family of networks. One thing I'm hopeful for is that NBC Sports Network, under Versus when it aired the track and field events like the World Championships, can go further with it than the mothership NBC has done since it got the Summer Olympic US TV rights starting from Seoul 1988. NBC tends to package field events like the high jump, the long jump, the triple jump, the javelin, the pole vault, and the shot put into brief 15-45 second highlights for each round. If you ever noticed, most of these events take place while the running events are in session. Heck, even the decathalon and heptathalon get reduced love on American television. We're lucky to get that length live (almost always tape delayed though). NBC would show the full 1500m mostly as an excuse to proclaim they aired the event. If it wants to focus on the Americans on it, fine. But make sure those track session get fuller and won't bounce around than it would on NBC.

Watching this men's high jump competition from ABC's 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics coverage made me wish that NBC's would not only be, if not necessarily, live but fuller in terms of coverage. Seems like it was from the glory days of US track and field broadcasting from many eons ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUMo-4zUvLc

Panasonic has the DVCPRO HD as the official recording format for the London Olympic Games. OBSL, the host broadcaster, will use P2 HD equipment to help support the broadcast of the Games. Yes, it will be under the 1080/50i HD format. The cameras that will be used are the AG-HPX250, the company’s first P2 HD handheld camcorder with AVC-Intra recording and two new AVCCAM HD handheld camcorders, the AG-AC160 and AG-AC130, with Full HD imagers and a new, wider 21X HD zoom lens.

ESPN Latin America has the cable TV rights for the 2012 London Olympics in South America excluding Brazil, which has SporTV (don't be surprised to see one of the four SporTV channels used to exclusively focus on Brazilian Olympians like with Athens and Beijing). Like with Vancouver also in this present deal, ESPN Latin America will be both cable and satelitte in its coverage in South America outside of Brazil except for Venezuela. Venezuela will be satelitte only. I think Canal 7 in Argentina will get the free-to-air rights there like it did with Beijing.

You Tube and LOCOG are working closely in working on a London Olympic You Tube channel like for Beijing, Vancouver, and Torino before it that will feature highlights and full events for viewers all around the world. Facebook is also getting involved aside from the official London 2012 Olympic page.

Panama, Uruguay, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduars, and El Salvador will get free-to-air TV rights coverage to the 2012 London Olympics thanks to an agreement with Grupo Albavision and the IOC.

http://www.insidethegames.biz/olympics/summer-olympics/london-2012-news/10512-tv-rights-for-london-2012-sold-in-latin-america

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BBC officials warn its trust that the anchor BBC network for the Olympic coverage, BBC 1, will have to deal with its news bulletins cut short for duration of the two Olympic weeks like its 6pm and 10pm news reports with events likely overrunning. Thus may making it miss its annual quota of peak-hours news programming for the flagship network, especially from 6am to midnight. Also it would be true when Euro 2012 hits.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/06/london-olympics-news-bulletins

Additional info regarding Ultra HD being used for select events at London and how it's going to be used. With 22.2 surround sound channel audio! Japan's NHK says it plans to make Ultra HD more fully implemented around 2020 in a trial run.

http://techielobang.com/blog/2011/11/22/nhk-to-broadcast-olympics-2012-in-ultra-hdtv-video/

RAI in Italy is only going to air 200 hours of the Olympics on free-to-air TV there, which, in comparison to what SKY Italia will have, an eighth of the coverage. Likely to focus more on the Azzurri Olympians. And it will be greatly reduced from 800 in Beijing to the 200 hours I just mentioned.

Don't think Bruce McAveney will ever leave Seven for the Nine Network, now that it is now "Australia's Olympic Network". Now that Seven has renewed its broadcast rights to the AFL, he will stay put. It's highly unlikely he would depart, anyway.

I wonder with NBC's Internet coverage of the London 2012 Olympics will we see again the OBSL logo intro video before and after the airing of the events, since we aren't likely to see that on the NBC Universal-Comcast family of networks. We can assume it's being produced and planned as we speak. Moreover, will see NBC use more of the final stats and highlight videos after an event during the course of the Olympics?

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