London 2012 Olympic Media Updates

[Durban Sandshark]

Kinda quiet here as far big developments are concerned for now. This gives me time to further get my thoughts about the upcoming coverage. I guess it's safe to assume, with NBC broadcasting the Super Bowl in a couple of weeks, the network will obviously show a nice London Olympic promo during the eagerly anticipated commercial breaks. For right now, I got another B/W promo for the newly-christened NBC Sports Network, the anchor sports channel for NBC Universal's Olympic coverage, following Ovi's, starring gymnast Nastia Liukin with this being a Summer Olympic year once again.

For FOXTEL, I can see the Steve Liebmann headlining London like he did with Delhi with Tiffany Cherry, and Matt Shirvington with the likes of Susie O'Neal, Andrew Gaze, Michelle Timms, Rachelle Hawkes, Daley Thompson, Raylene Boyle, Liz Chetkovich, Gary Wilkinson, Dave Wansbrough, Mike McCann, David "Christo" Christison, Rebecca Wilson, Peter Doneghan, Mike McCann, Scott McGrory, and Matt Murphy. I don't think Ray Hadley will be on board, as he could possibly remain at 2GB's coverage on radio, particularly at the pool with a possible teamup with Nicole Stevenson. Don't know who could make for soccer, volleyball, and water polo. Perhaps Natalie Potthurst. Could we see some sharing with Nine in some sports like with Bradbury and Camplin? Boyle, Gaze, Timms, and O'Neill might. Phil Ligget has covered cycling for Australian TV during the Olympics, so I don't see anything different. Could Ruby Rose make a return? She might do BMX biking.

With that, FOXTEL could produce some Australian-centric Summer Olympic previews with programming towards Australia's past Olympic endeavors like some docs to fill the airtime until the tape-delayed Opening ceremony and the competition hits on the FOXTEL London channels. Don't know about a highlights channel like in Vancouver, but it's possible.

Australian TV rights holders, if I got it correctly, tend to put their copyrights at the beginning of the Olympic broadcast as opposed to close to the end of the segment like we do here in the US. Don't know about how Canada does it. So it'll be something like this for Nine in London. Wording on the copyright is similiar to what we have on NBC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BLBn9G_3w

Some TV networks that hold the Olympics have been know to air past Summer Olympic ceremonies in the lead up to the new Olympics. As much as I would like to see NBC do something like that, I can't see that happening unless it falls to Universal Sports to do an Olympic marathon. Besides, they don't have the rights apparently to all of them, AFAIK. The BBC, on the other hand, I can see doing and perhaps have it on, say, their digital-only channels or BBC Parliament, if not online. It http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/olympics_2012/4352644.stm]recently aired a documentary about the last time London hosted the Olympics way back in 1948[/url] on BBC4. Surely, that one will see airplay again multiple times to be fresh in the minds of British viewers on the 24 streams there. If anybody, the BBC would puill out all the stops as hosts on the Olympic programming.

recently"]http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/olympics_2012/4352644.stm

[Durban Sandshark]

Nine's Winter Olympic copyright from Vancouver and intro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BLBn9G_3w

Seven's version from Beijing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CwUebwcH54

[bomberguy]

Thanks for sharing that video on the channel 7 intro from Beijing, it brings back great memories. I love the opening sequence then introduction by the host to the Olympic Games, a fantastic feeling.

[Durban Sandshark]

Once again, I'll try to do the Nine Network's 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic copyright and intro (where's that option where you can proofread your posts before sending them?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BLBn9G_3w

Michael Phelps? Hope Solo? Abby Wambach? Ryan Lochte? Alyson Felix? Jordan Wieber? Dara Torres? Nastia Liukin? Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor? If she qualifies, Janet Evans? Who and how will NBC promote as the US Olympic breakout star for its London coverage, where its getting tougher since Beijing to haul numerous medals and grab for the American casual Olympic fans' attention? No casual fan here, but one part the casual fan can help themselves is educating themselves about the various sports and be more broad-minded instead of just being accumstomed to the same rotation of sports we get in the calendar. For various reasons, these and others can and do have their limitations in their intangibles and other cons.

http://www.postandco...lympic-star-is/

Computer Weekly Interview with BBC IT director John Linwood on how the BBC will tackle all that video and audio footage and streaming during the Olympics. Needless to say, it's a lot to tackle. But the team is highly-trained and prepared, fully getting ready to make the BBC a "21st Century broadcaster". They're planning to cloud too.

http://www.computerw...ogy-officer-BBC

Ofcom launches a consultation program with the BBC:

http://www.thedrum.c...ast-rights-2012

[Durban Sandshark]

Let's try that Nine Olympic copyright again (I think I omitted a letter in the website address)

[Durban Sandshark]

The NBC Universal family of networks is really shoring up a lot of the Olympic sports for its coverage from London to Sochi now, especially with the NBC Sports Network and Universal Sports.

Universal Sports has the CONCACAF Olympic women's soccer qualification tournament going on right now in Vancouver, British Columbia in a multiplatform coverage with NBC Sports Network airing the final and its re-airing:

http://www.worldfoot...y.aspx?id=34902

Tape-delayed broadcasting of the 2012 US Olympic Marathon Trial in Houston on NBC (but no live streaming, will explain why):

http://houston.sbnat...age-tv-schedule

7 hours of NBC live broadcasting of the 2012 Prudential US Figure Skating Championships with Universal Sports rebroadcasting everything but the Champions Gala this weekend at San Jose's HP Pavillion:

http://tvbythenumber...ionship/117679/

More on NBC's 3D Olympic TV plans in London with the strong help from Panasonic, the exclusive HDTV and Blu-Ray player sponsor and supplier for NBC there:

http://mediadecoder....y-for-blue-ivy/

http://www.multichan...h_Panasonic.php

Proctor and Gamble will sponsor 150 athletes including Michael Phelps, Lin Dan, and Michael Phelps for its "Thank You, Mom" Olympic campaign that was just announced that will obviously be on NBC's, CTV's, and Nine's coverage, to give a few examples:

http://www.bizjourna...e-than-150.html

BBC Head of Sport Cate O'Riordan presents a demo of what the BBC Sport's 2012 live Olympic coverage would seamlessly look like with TV and the 24 Internet streams connecting together with social networking for an excellent experience:

RDS Info Sports is now RDS INFO with RDS 2 just hitting earlier this year

[Brekkie Boy]

It's going to start quite late. Pre-show starts 8.12pm, and proper show only at 9pm with the bell rings. Everything will end right before 12am. A 3 hours ceremony including the athletes procession, a bit short no?

So the timing has switched again - it was announced as a 7.30pm start last year. Whatever they say we all know no ceremony at the Summer games at least clocks in at under 4 hours - so we could be looking at 1am for the lighting of the cauldron. I think we saw Steve Redgrave pick up his Sydney medal earlier than that!

There is some suggestion it might have been done so the actual lighting falls within US primetime - but I really can't see NBC broadcasting from 4-8pm. If anything having it later will surely reinforce their plan to tape delay it and show it in primetime.

P.S. 3D coverage - on a 24 hour delay. Is there really any point?

[Quaker2001]

There is some suggestion it might have been done so the actual lighting falls within US primetime - but I really can't see NBC broadcasting from 4-8pm. If anything having it later will surely reinforce their plan to tape delay it and show it in primetime.

If NBC is true to their word, they promised live coverage "on one platform or another." I'm fairly confident that platform won't be television and that the only TV broadcast will be on tape in primetime. But that's exactly why they won't show it live on TV.. so that you can experience it live on the Internet at 3pm or whenever it's taking place and then watch it again on television. That doesn't happen if they show it live on TV.

P.S. 3D coverage - on a 24 hour delay. Is there really any point?

Sure there's a point.. to sell 3DTV's. This is exactly what NBC did for Athens. They got a major technology provider to cover the costs of HD coverage where there otherwise wouldn't have been any, even though it was all on a 24-hour delay. The idea was to promote high definition of an event that had never seen it before. Same thing here.. and there's a lot less 3D content out there now than there was HD content in 2004. Besides, it's all probably going to be long-form, so that's certainly going to entice a lot of people.

[Durban Sandshark]

If NBC is true to their word, they promised live coverage "on one platform or another." I'm fairly confident that platform won't be television and that the only TV broadcast will be on tape in primetime. But that's exactly why they won't show it live on TV.. so that you can experience it live on the Internet at 3pm or whenever it's taking place and then watch it again on television. That doesn't happen if they show it live on TV.

Sure there's a point.. to sell 3DTV's. This is exactly what NBC did for Athens. They got a major technology provider to cover the costs of HD coverage where there otherwise wouldn't have been any, even though it was all on a 24-hour delay. The idea was to promote high definition of an event that had never seen it before. Same thing here.. and there's a lot less 3D content out there now than there was HD content in 2004. Besides, it's all probably going to be long-form, so that's certainly going to entice a lot of people.

I back up with what you said Quaker2001, I too am believing that it will be the Internet streams on the computers, cell phones, and tablets that will feature the all live coverage. TV, as a decades-long established medium, which here in the US relies largely on advertiser sponsorship and an older audience raised on ABC/NBC/CBS Olympic programming habits for years, with (mostly) cable exceptions will go tape-delayed on NBC. As I stated earlier here on this thread, the marquee events in both ceremonies, swimming, gymnastics, track & field (like the 100m sprints), beach volleyball, and rowing will get embargoed towards primetime, where NBC Sports and their reporters will weave narratives more so to attract casual fans. In fact, I'm thinking this could act as where NBC might do some Olympic news and highlights along with the action for in our primetime it's late night in London and the rest of Europe, something they did a bit up to Atlanta here and there. But I wouldn't be surprised at all if NBC actually does not again. For primetime replay, we can have the option of re-watching things along with on-demand Internet streams.

Yeah, 3D TV is hyped up and supported to encourage people to buy those TVs as much as HDTV was in Athens for NBC--and I'm sure NBC and Panasonic would like Americans to gooble up on Panasonic 3D TV flat screens for the company is an official Olympic sponsor that is covering the tech costs. However, it hasn't made inroads into the general public like HDTV did and got standardized into broadcasting since there is not much in the way of 3D programming as of yet. While also enticing people to buy them likely in a longfrom format, another reason is obvious why an Olympics or another big event like the Super Bowl in the early going of 3DTV's development: it's a brand and holds a known track record of pulling significant TV audiences ensures some recoupment of the investment on something to visually experience like never before. I'm very curious to wonder will all 3DTVs brands get glasses to allows us to watch different competitors like in a sprint with a switch of the turner like on the Sony PS3 3D glasses for certain games for the Olympics? Only Japan was into HDTV when it started and apparently used it for Seoul when I remember watching a TV report at the CES in Las Veags promoting HDTV with footage of the Seoul Opening Ceremony back in circa 1991 when it was years away from being as a North American TV standard.

Bulgaria's public broadcasting network BNT holds the Bulgarian TV rights to the London Olympics. My goodness, is it still just BNT-1? Many other European nations, including those from the former Soviet bloc have more than one terrestrial channel, even from the state broadcasters. They can surely expand the coverage more if it gets another channel or two. Maybe that's being worked on in time. It might get its own sports channel like Slovakia's STV did with STV 3, which debuted just in the nick of time for the Beijing Olympics. Of course, as with any national Olympic broadcaster that has a wider reach, the focus will be on the Bulgarian Olympians and of the sports they participate in the vast majority of Bulgarians will get most interetsted in. Yes, there is Eurosport, which actually has a Bulgarian-language version as an alternative with two 24-hour channels, Eurosport and Eurosport 2. Remains to be seen if TV+, carried by sattelite company Bulsatcom, might do the domestic London pay-TV rights for Eurosport is pan-European. TV+ is a strong contender for Sochi and Rio, however.

http://www.sofiaecho.com/2012/01/27/1754028_olympic-rights

TyC Sports broadcasted every Summer Olympics to Argentina since Atlanta, making London its fifth consecutive one.

Because there's no Macau NOC, it's starting to seem less likely that there will be Portuguese-language Olympic coverage. There's CCTV from China (Chinese, very likely both Mandarin and Cantonese) and i-Cable out of Hong Kong (with Cantonese and English). For the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, TDM did the Portuguese coverage, for example. Maybe if CCTV can supply the feed to the TDM and have TDM do the Portuguese commentary, or offer Portuguese-language Olympic stuff on one of its CCTV channels.

Just the other day, I saw the following 2008 article online. It confirms that Turkey's TRT, prinicipally through its sports channel TRT3, is indeed broadcasting the 2012 London Summer Olympics, possibly the final one with Fox Turkey, a general entertainment channel with little history or involvement in sports broadcasting, taking over afterwards with its stronger financial committment. TRT was widely believed to consider the future of that TRT3 sports channel and drop Olympic sports TV programming altogether. Sports remained on with other types of entertainment. This report also mentioned that France's Canal+ and Orange were currently in negotiations for Sochi and Rio. Canal+ was in negotiations with France Televisions for London, even after being expelled from the EBU in 1998 and after its French Olympic cable TV contract running from 2000-2008 expired. Beijing, however, proved to be an incredible success for Canal+ with viewership up 17% despite a less favorable time zone viewing for France.

http://www.sportbusiness.com/print-edition/ioc%E2%80%99s-new-gatekeeper-strategy-could-close-door-ebu

Band has been negotiating with TV Record for a while now over the broadcasting of the London Olympics. But any images supplied by Rede Record apparently must be mentioned by Band from Record a day after the events are over, the latter mandates. TV Band is not accepting, however. I assumed Band will use OBSL footage through the IOC for its coverage.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://www.rd1audiencia.com/televisao/record-so-quer-liberar-imagens-da-olimpiada-para-a-band-apos-24h/&ei=2HwoT9S-EcKrsQLQ7qX6Ag&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.rd1audiencia.com/televisao/record-so-quer-liberar-imagens-da-olimpiada-para-a-band-apos-24h/%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D891%26prmd%3Dimvns

By the time you read this, BBC Sport's popular website will have a massive makeover to coincide with the Euro 2012's and, more domestically, the 2012 London Summer Olympics' advent. Supposed to be more navagational and cleaner than it previously was. And more live sports coverage.

http://thenextweb.com/uk/2012/01/31/bbc-sport-online-to-relaunch-with-a-new-design-focusing-on-live-sports-coverage/

http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-first-look-bbc-sport-sites-long-overdue-reboot-ahead-of-olympics/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/front_page/16612342.stm

[Durban Sandshark]

For Canada, it's seems confirmed that Perry Solkowski will report from poolside for the swimming and likely diving for CTV's coverage. We can expect more announcements for sports in the coming weeks.

In basketball, there's a possibility that the Toronto Raptors' TSN duo of Matt Devlin and Jack Armstrong will not work the basketball as was previously assumed they would but possibly instead Paul Romanuk, who will get used by the Olympic consortium in some capacity, teamed with former Canadian national basketball team Leo Rautins, who incidently did the analysis for the Raptors on The Score and holds good knowledge on international basketball.

Soccer could have Kara Lang, Nigel Reed, and Craig Forest with Lang possibly in for Forest out the English portion of the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Consortium. Likely, the Canadians would get the BBC host feed of the soccer.

Canadiansports is reporting all this and the speculations from his blog

http://canadiansport...prove/#comments

[CanadianSportsFan]

Rautins isn't just the former Raptors on theScore analyst. He is currently employed by TSN as a studio analyst (for NBA and March Madness) and does Raptors games on Sportsnet (as part of his contract with MLSE). This is how I understand it at least.

I'm trying to work on confirming some of these things.

[Quaker2001]

Interesting website I just came across... http://advertise.nbcsports.com/

If their listings are correct, we now know what networks are in play for NBC's London coverage. They will be using NBC, NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, and Telemundo. No USA Network (after they hours got scaled down for Vancouver, this isn't surprising.. their coverage has essentially been shifted to NBCSN) and no Oxygen (I imagine Bravo is likely taking their place). Doesn't really give any details, although there is a note on the NBC Sports Network page mentioning that they'll be home to Team USA coverage including volleyball, soccer and basketball. Although we largely knew that already.

Also of note, from the page on nbcolympics.com, it mentions this..

We are going to make Olympic history. With YouTube as our official video-on-demand partner, NBCOlympics.com will be the exclusive online destination for all in-venue video. We plan to deliver the most extensive 2012 Olympics content to viewers, including---for the first time ever---ALL events streamed live. That's right, you'll be able to watch up to 3,000 hours of live streaming covering all 302 Gold Medals and every event inbetween.

We'll also include replays of Web-exclusive events, all television broadcasts, interviews with the athletes and exclusive daily segments about London 2012. Live streams will be available across our mobile platforms, providing an extraordinary 360-degree coverage of The Games.

Again, nothing too groundbreaking there, although it's good to hear them reinforce that everything is in fact going to be streamed live.

[Durban Sandshark]

Didin't pay attention that Sportsnet also holds a share of the Raptors TV games, which makes sense given now that Bell Media and Rogers Communications now both hold a controlling stake of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. More so on Rautins with the NCAA on TSN as a studio analyst in Toronto since he is among the most notable Canadians to make a dent there (in Syracuse during the early 1980s) and the additional fact his son Andy later played there in recent times before going into the NBA.

Now with the revelation of the supposed NBC Olympic networks roster (I'm very seriously thinking that it is), Bravo could go even further than what Oxygen did with just equestrian and gymnastics, and do those review shows. Of course, they have the experience from Athens to cover a wider range of sports that don't garner mass American attention--which I think they'll repise--including the ones that weren't televised in Beijing like judo, taekwondo, and fencing. Especially with NBC Sports Network designated as "the London home to Team USA". Now, I'm going to have to revise those TV hour allocations...

Who else but YouTube that people worldwide, including Americans, would instantly know that people can instantly go online to see videos with? It has already done the live streaming thing for years now. Those would to be associate itself with the official London Olympic channel (and hopefully Americans would get access to view past Olympic ones without the territorial restrictions). How about options for different languages? Still no news for the iPods.

[Durban Sandshark]

Not yet officially announced but Telstra BigPond is expected to acquire the Australian Internet, cell/mobile, and IPTV of the London Olympics on its Sports TV to add with NRL and AFL. As a partner of Athletics Australia Tour 2012, it faces a jeopardizing rival with Optus' TVNow that could get a lot of the Olympic video itself.

http://www.channelnews.com.au/Content_And_Management/Industry/R7R7E3U2?page=1

One thing I forgot to mention last night was the smart TVs hitting the market and how that will get an impact with the Olympics. As far as I seen, there is yet to be any of them with 3D capabilities, but they're currently not as promoted as aggressively as HDTVs were back in Athens and 3DTVs are now.

[CanadianSportsFan]

Sportsnet had Raptors games since before the MLSE sale. They acquired the rights that theScore and CBC previously had a few seasons back.

CTV will begin their 2012 "I Believe" campaign during their broadcast of the Super Bowl on Sunday.

to one of them on YouTube. See my channel for 3 others that were pre-released. You can also see more information on my blog.

[Quaker2001]

Now with the revelation of the supposed NBC Olympic networks roster (I'm very seriously thinking that it is), Bravo could go even further than what Oxygen did with just equestrian and gymnastics, and do those review shows. Of course, they have the experience from Athens to cover a wider range of sports that don't garner mass American attention--which I think they'll repise--including the ones that weren't televised in Beijing like judo, taekwondo, and fencing. Especially with NBC Sports Network designated as "the London home to Team USA". Now, I'm going to have to revise those TV hour allocations...

Keep in mind though that it was NBC people that produced all of the coverage, no so much specifically Bravo people doing the Bravo coverage from Athens.

Where I think they may get used.. if NBC wants to continue their round-the-clock coverage as they've done the past 2 Summer Olympics, then they have 2 key holes to fill. One is the Midnight-12:35am slot where NBC is in local news. For Beijing, that was CNBC which usually had a softball game at Midnight ET. And for Athens, that was the late night hour on Bravo you were alluding to that had sports like sailing and judo. So that could be what's in play here. The other hole is potentially at 2am. Since that's 7am in London, there usually won't be any competition on at that time. The question there is will there be an additional late night show on cable or is that where NBC Sports Network comes on the air. I have a feeling it might be the latter which, as we were guessing earlier, could mean upwards of 250 hours of coverage for them. Certainly wouldn't surprise me to see that.

My guesses for the allocation of hours since you brought it up.. 200 hours for NBC. 250 hours for NBC Sports Network. 150 hours for MSNBC. 90 hours on CNBC. I have no idea with Bravo, but let's say 75 for them. And that's not even including whatever there is on Telemundo, the 200 hours of 3D coverage, however much the Olympic Soccer and Olympic Basketball channels contribute (I'm betting those are back), plus the 3,000 hours of coverage (all live of course) we'll be getting online.

[bgdrewsif]

If NBC wanted to effectively use its networks they would move gymnastics and diving to Bravo to appeal to that network's core audience...

[Quaker2001]

If NBC wanted to effectively use its networks they would move gymnastics and diving to Bravo to appeal to that network's core audience...

And what would they move to NBC in it's place? Gymnastics and diving (less so diving in the past decade since the United States hasn't won a medal since Sydney) are the big ticket events along of course with track & field and swimming. They need to be on NBC to draw those big audiences, they don't belong on cable. Bravo could potentially reprise the Oxygen role from Beijing and air some gymnastics coverage, but except the primetime show for London to be full of a lot of the same events they had in Beijing.. the big 4, maybe some beach volleyball, don't know you'll see too much else.

[Durban Sandshark]

Keep in mind though that it was NBC people that produced all of the coverage, no so much specifically Bravo people doing the Bravo coverage from Athens.

Where I think they may get used.. if NBC wants to continue their round-the-clock coverage as they've done the past 2 Summer Olympics, then they have 2 key holes to fill. One is the Midnight-12:35am slot where NBC is in local news. For Beijing, that was CNBC which usually had a softball game at Midnight ET. And for Athens, that was the late night hour on Bravo you were alluding to that had sports like sailing and judo. So that could be what's in play here. The other hole is potentially at 2am. Since that's 7am in London, there usually won't be any competition on at that time. The question there is will there be an additional late night show on cable or is that where NBC Sports Network comes on the air. I have a feeling it might be the latter which, as we were guessing earlier, could mean upwards of 250 hours of coverage for them. Certainly wouldn't surprise me to see that.

My guesses for the allocation of hours since you brought it up.. 200 hours for NBC. 250 hours for NBC Sports Network. 150 hours for MSNBC. 90 hours on CNBC. I have no idea with Bravo, but let's say 75 for them. And that's not even including whatever there is on Telemundo, the 200 hours of 3D coverage, however much the Olympic Soccer and Olympic Basketball channels contribute (I'm betting those are back), plus the 3,000 hours of coverage (all live of course) we'll be getting online.

Yeah, I knew that it was actually NBC that did the actual producing for Bravo's portion of the coverage back in Athens, several months after NBC Universal acquired Bravo, USA Network, and Telemundo. If your TV hours allocation is true for Bravo, that means it will even be less than what Bravo aired in its first portion for Athens (122 hours)--a 47 hour decrease. Based on what we know about that, I always assumed it was more the global-oriented of the bunch of the channels since it is the one that can afford to take that chance on Olympic coverage than its more mainstream and established channels. That is, cover more in depth sports like sailing, handball, judo, fencing, and taekwondo along with the gymnastics and equestrian. since surely some people were miffed they weren't televised among the networks and just online. Perhaps NBC may want to go over the 24-hour rate to accomodate Bravo's hours since a) it was 122 hours in Athens and we could assume there will be growth and expansion in hours slots in keeping a trend since Sydney when MSNBC and CNBC first joined. When then-NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol announced the prospective hours last year, he said there would be a 20% increase in hours on NBC proper (from 226) with a 100 hour increase among all the channels participating from Beijing. Surely, this was before the Ebersol resignation from his post, the merger of Comcast and NBC-Universal, the acquisation of Versus (now NBC Sports Channel), and the return of Bravo. All of which changes everything. But it may turn that you're right about the hour allocations and the time slotting to a large degree.

For Telemundo, I noticed on the press kit that it says Telemundo Deportes. Could this mean there is going to be a new Spanish-language sports channel to rival those from ESPN Deportes and FOX Sports en Espanol that will cover the Olympic sports, for example, further than what Telemundo proper could handle? Right now, it's a just a division. Telemundo aired 380 hours from Beijing, may hit 400 this time for all I care. We shouldn't expect anything different from them, except maybe the addition of both ceremonies, a first in US Spanish TV and maybe the creation of Deportes Telemundo that will make that more expansive. Yes, I too do expect those Olympic Basketball and Soccer Channels to be back.

On to CTV's new Believe 2012 Olympics campaign. Notice instead of the black on the maple leaf profile beside the Believe font, it's blue to coincide with the UK's Union Jack. I really like these promos that Josh linked for us to share and see, narrated by Halifax's own Ellen Page. Gordon Pinsent is coming. So colorful. But the thing I like the best about them is how multicultural these spots are taking you from London to Vancouver Island (an obvious nod to Vancouver's coverage) to Jamaica to China to Poland to The Philippines to Italy to India and to Portugal as everyone watches the Olympics wherever they are! They encapsulate just how multicultural Canada is within its demographics, something Canada likes to heavily promote. And the fact Canadians are liked and admired worldwide and how those (among many other) populations impact and influence Canada and more of the world together, more so than in the Vancouver Winter Olympics. If you have been paying attention regarding the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium's coverage starting with Vancouver, it's not that hard to notice that Polish, Italian, Chinese (both Cantonese and Mandarin), Portuguese, and the South Asian languages (Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bangla, Tamil, Gujarati) are potentially going to be involved in the multilingual portion as we see in those promos. Hopefully with other ones added like Spanish and German. Makes lots of sense to get Canadians into the London Olympic spirit with these promos as they gather nationwide to watch Superbowl XVLI on CTV to start things. Still no official word on will NBC do likewise for their coverage of the Superbowl. This time, hopefully, we will see the French-language ones to this. Where in the hell were they for Vancouver?

As I visited the Indian forum Saveondish, posters discuss that Doordarshan, the Indian public TV broadcaster, will televise the 2012 London Olympics on DD National and DD Sport, just like on previous Olympics and with the Commonwealth Games. However, some say will not be on HD and 3D since apparently ESPN Star Sport Asia has the exclusivity on those. But one poster says it will be on DD HD's versions. Regardless, coverage from London will be live from Doordarshan.

Found additional details on ESPN Latin America's coverage plans (including 35 hours of live daily coverage with ESPN3.com on Cablevision as a partner in this) for London as it starts an encroaching rivalry with Argentina's TyC Sports and in their longstanding premier coverage.

http://www.rapidtvne...-dominance.html

I hope NBC will stream the pre-Opening Ceremony show at the Olympic Stadium live and on-demand like CBC did on its numerous streams over CBCsports.ca when it had the TV rights to Beijing.

[bgdrewsif]

And what would they move to NBC in it's place? Gymnastics and diving (less so diving in the past decade since the United States hasn't won a medal since Sydney) are the big ticket events along of course with track & field and swimming. They need to be on NBC to draw those big audiences, they don't belong on cable. Bravo could potentially reprise the Oxygen role from Beijing and air some gymnastics coverage, but except the primetime show for London to be full of a lot of the same events they had in Beijing.. the big 4, maybe some beach volleyball, don't know you'll see too much else.

Quaker, I was joking... trying to be subtle to not offend (too much...) Think about the Bravo network for a while...

[Durban Sandshark]

Some additional thoughts

I'm very curious as to who will call the French-Canadian language coverage of basketball for RDS and RDS INFO. Given that basketball is a popular Olympic sport, it would make sense to designate a couple of people for it. Interest is high, especially in Montreal. I just cannot instantly think of anybody at the top of my head who can solidly do that. There are of course some players and coaches based in Montreal who can cover it (and likely do so with the analyst calling on a widescreen HD monitor from RDS' headquarters there) with knowledge of the international game like Sam Dalembert or maybe UQAM Citadins men's basketball coach Olga Hrycak (yes, a woman). I think it's more than likely someone actually from France with international basketball ties will get hired in that capacity. France's Les Bleues in both the men's and women's (if they qualify) teams are bound to be popular among the Quebec and Acadian populations in basketball along with the rest of the filed that features NBA stars from around the globe like of course Team USA. Richard Dacoury might do it for RDS, but he could do it again for France Televisions' Olympic basketball coverage.

I know some Canadians are sick of the sight of Believe making a comeback for London after Vancouver, as a few mentioned in response to Canadiansports' blog entry indicating the Believe's return. But it's memorable and a catchy brand for the Canadian public. I too don't see any reason to change it, especially since CTV and Rogers are pairing for what will be the last one (for now, pending what the IOC wants to change in TV rights fees for Sochi and Rio in Canada) I have no issue with it. The Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium can certainly make some additional change for London with this campaign, like maybe get another singer or song from Nikki Yanovski's "I Believe" Vancouver and come up with a comparable montage to CBC's..and don't get too sappy and melodramatic like NBC has been known to do.

That TSN London 2012 promo featuring Indian boxer Mary Khan had me seriously wondering if women's boxing will appear on TSN, as it assumes and very likely on the ATN networks since for the Summer Olympics, they focus more on the athletes and sports that appeal to the South Asian community in Canada. On that note, based on what we saw in the Believe 2012 campaign so far, we're going to see OMNI, APTN, and ATN finally get their turns for promos aired in their networks.

Plymouth, England's Plymouth City Centre gets the big screen ready for three months in the leadup and start of the Olympics from the BBC's massive

coverage

http://www.thisisply...tail/story.html

[Mr Tickle]

OMG I just saw the BBC logo animated. I wasnt paying enough attention but the 3 boxes kind of turn and one comes closer to the screen showing images on the sides then they return to form the Olympic BBC logo. It looked good, simple and quite effective.

It was advertising the Proms I think, there was orchestral music, oooh why didnt I look up sooner!!!!!

Im so excited

[BTHarner]

I wonder if, now that we have a proliferation of streaming players that connect to TVs (Roku, Apple TV, etc), TVs with internet apps, and game consoles (PS3, Xbox360), if NBC will be making its online coverage available through those types of devices.

[Barcelona_'92]

Here's a new interview with NBC Sports head Mark Lazarus:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mark-lazarus-nbc-sports-chairman-super-bowl-286911

He confirms that NBC Sports Network will have 14 hours of coverage each day, from 6am-8pm Eastern. Most of the coverage will be live but will not include the big ticket events, which will be streamed online but not archived.

[Quaker2001]

Here's a new interview with NBC Sports head Mark Lazarus:

http://www.hollywood...per-bowl-286911

He confirms that NBC Sports Network will have 14 hours of coverage each day, from 6am-8pm Eastern. Most of the coverage will be live but will not include the big ticket events, which will be streamed online but not archived.

That's a great find, Barc. Well done. So there answers a question about NBCSN. I thought they'd come up a little earlier than 6am every day. But it should put them over the 200 hour mark in terms of total coverage. Where those extra hours (if that does in fact happen), remains a mystery. But definitely a good piece of info to have.