Jump to content

Sochi 2014 Olympic Media Updates


DamC

Recommended Posts

It's been very difficult at this point to find any developments pertaining to the general overview coverage plans for Sochi's host TV broadcasters Channel 1, Rossiya 1 and 2, and NTV Plus outside of the Panorama HDTV and 3D plans, even with the aid of a Google search and that of possible translating from Roman and Cyrillic. The Cyrillic stuff itself has proved a challenge unless it presents itself. The Canadian Host Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium got the host nation's rights to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, it made a serious point in detailing you on all the developments from the very beginning. On the other hand, I kinda taking this consortium, like with many European broadcasters, won't go public in its plans just yet because of serious promotion of other sports priorities at this time with various soccer and basketball leagues, upcoming winter sports, various hockey leagues, tennis, handball, swimming, golf, volleyball, and even showing US-Canadian sports. We probrably should not expect big time stuff coming in gradually until sometime between November-January, when attention reaches critical mass. However, a few European nations are far more advanced in their plans than others. Norway's TV 2 just announced its Sochi 2014 Olympic studio hosts and its sportscasters for its various sports within weeks of each other with analysts coming soon. Its next door neighbor Sweden has the Modern Times Group doing the coverage both on pay-TV through Viasat and on any of its TV3, TV6, TV8, and TV10 channels. ZDF announced plans to stream online from its website. Just to name a few examples. Maybe Channel One, Rossiya 1-2, and NTV Plus will plan to announce all their bigger details all at one then. Even the CBC and NBC haven't gone this deep yet outside of a few news items likely for similar reasons. I do expect several members of Hockey Night In Canada taking part for the hockey in Sochi. As for NBC, you would certainly expect many on the team will be there--Bob Costas, Apollo Anton Ohno, Mike "Doc" Emrick, Al Michaels, Kenny Albert, Andrea Joyce, Al Trautwig, and Mary Carillo. Just short of an official announcement for many. Promotion of the Games is sure to intensify then.

Going to be interesting with how Star India and Japanese ad agency Dentsu emulating Sportfive in Europe will deal with selling the Sochi coverage in its various territories it holds. Those two will surely have to sell to free-to-air coverage broadcasters along with pay-TV ones, perhaps to avoid situations like what occured in Sri Lanka for the London rights. I assume the likes of Doordarshan, i-CABLE, ELTA, Modernine, Mediacorp, NBN, Solar Sports, and True Visions will all return for this because of the Olympic experience they all provide. Even NZ and Africa has yet to have their biddings. But it's coming soon. So far, there's no official word regarding Eurosport. But I do expect that to return too. Come to think of it, I think Star India might want to have its own answer to Eurosport.

Just as it is next door with Sweden with MTG taking over the Olympic coverage from longstanding public broadcaster SVT, there's serious concern that commercial broadcaster TV2 in Norway would seriously disrupt the enjoyment of watching the Olympics with its commercial breaks when the action gets good instead of watching all throughout, as many viewers there come to expect. TV2 assures like Viasat that it will maintain its hourly 20-minute commercial breaks when appropriate and may likely even shorten them in some cases while respecting the Winter Olympic sports structure. Hockey is easy with its breaks in action like intermission, so it can possibly go 12 minutes in between there in total. Other sports will continue uninterrupted.

http://www.nrk.no/kultur/tv-2-far-flere-reklamepauser-1.11066079

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=http://www.nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.11066079&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtv%2B2%2Bol%2B2014%2Bnrk%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D908

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 637
  • Created
  • Last Reply

France 2 announces hours ago it will broadcast 220 televised hours live from Sochi

http://tele.premiere.fr/News-Tele/Rentree-2013-decouvrez-toutes-les-nouveautes-de-France-2-3822534

Australians clearly aren't into the Olympics like they used to now, though it's still a pretty big deal. Media audiences and their tastes in Australia are changing. Now, as Sir Rols have pointed out here, there's a bigger demand and appeal these days to shell out for Twenty20 Big Bash cricket, NRL, AFL, tennis, V8 racing, and even A-League TV riches. When the Nine Network lost A$20 million from its London coverage last year (with FOXTEL it was a combined A$60 million), despite strong advertising sales leading up to it, it marked the end of an era for the Olympics to Australians. Guess it's not as fun like it used to be. Too bad it's only two weeks. Should be a month in my view. Partly becuase of this, Nine refuse to take part in the 2014 Sochi bidding. What also didn't help Nine was of Australia's collective disappointing performance at the pool...then the fact the next year at the World Track and Field Championships in Moscow, Australia failed to win gold in it even with Sally Pearson. Australia did better in the World Swimming Championships in Barcelona the next year.

Anyway, Ten plans to show at least 500 hours of Sochi 2014 on its primary channel, One digital channel, and its eight streaming Internet channels from Sochi. Much of the afternoon sessions will take place live during Australian prime time. Hopes to make at A$10 million in revenue and break even.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/some-fun-goes-out-of-games-20130828-2soxg.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michelle Kwan named as a Sochi correspondent for the brand new Fox Sports 1 with a focus on "insider stories" being a former Olympian. Interesting in the sense that she currently works for the US State Department.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/michelle-kwan-cover-2014-olympics-599594

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was just reading Cbc will show every event live and ondemand and they will broadcast 24/7 now if this is true it would be massive and i think most if not all would be very happy.

Well that's not true, because there will still be Hockey Night in Canada the first weekend of the Olympics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

TSN covered Canada's Olympic Hockey Team training and orientation camp on August 25. Surely by December, we will see TSN and CBC (with its French versions RDS and Radio-Canada Television) produce Canadian Olympic Team Selection Show.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=430349

TV2 Norge goes to deltatre for its first ever digital project with multiplatform digital coverage--TV2 OL apps and provision of comprehension of official results included--for Sochi 2014. Ulf, from the IBM Lillehammer 1994 commercials, no longer is needed.

http://www.sportsfeatures.com/presspoint/pressrelease/54020/tv-2-selects-deltatre-to-provide-multi-platform-digital-coverage-for-sochi-2014

Drommen Om Sotsji (Dreaming Of Sochi) premieres on Sweden's TV3 in January. But one of the aspiring Swdish Olympic hopefuls in this series is not going to compete: skiier Jens Byggmark, a major medal hope for Sochi in Swedish skiing, injured his ACL in his right knee from crashing during practice in Switzerland. Effectively ending his skiing season this year.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.viasatsport.se/os/inlagg/latsas-vi-att-drommen-lever/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.viasatsport.se/os/inlagg/latsas-vi-att-drommen-lever/%26biw%3D1117%26bih%3D812

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In an Australian article Sir Rols uploaded and linked to start the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Media Updates centering on the Australian Olympic broadcasting interests piqued by having them in Tokyo, a more favorable time spot for Australia and New Zealand, it also reports that Network Ten ulitmately decided to instead be based its 180-strong team in Sochi and not the upscale, specified Melbourne studios. Also, Nine revealed at the IOC Meetings in Buenos Aires it covered that it will send a large news contigent to Sochi to cover it despite having passed on the 2014 Sochi rights after being awash in the red from London.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/broadcast/tokyos-games-win-ups-ante-for-200m-rights-package-deal/story-fna045gd-1226719618449

Has anybody noticed on the CBC Sports' websites that the ad square promoting the Canadian 2014 Winter Olympic hopefuls for its upcoming coverage is taking serious cues and looks a lot like from what CTV did for Vancouver in terms of its presentation and layout? Seems to me the CBC-led consortium is taking notes from the previous Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium.

Wellen+Nothern, based in both Koln (Cologne) and Berlin, gets selected by ZDF and ARD to manage the live digital broadcasting for both Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, obviously two of the biggest sports events in the world next year, with its IT-based HD production and platforms that will be used for both.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.film-tv-video.de/newsdetail%2BM562864878f0.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.film-tv-video.de/newsdetail%252BM562864878f0.html%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D879%26tbm%3Dnws

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.professional-production.de/news/einzelansicht/datum/2013/09/06/wellen-noethen-ruestet-ard-und-zdf-fuer-grosssportevents-2014-aus/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.professional-production.de/news/einzelansicht/datum/2013/09/06/wellen-noethen-ruestet-ard-und-zdf-fuer-grosssportevents-2014-aus/%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D879%26tbm%3Dnws

I'm thinking ORF will have ORF 1 and ORF Sport + to take care of the Austrian Olympic coverage for Sochi 2014. Until it's officially announced, we're going have to take it with a grain of salt. We do know that ATV will only broadcast the Sochi ceremonies. I'm wondering why would ORF and ATV would take a page from what France Televisions did when it allowed TF1 do the London ceremonies?

In the face of massive austerity currently hitting Spain like with youth unemployment being well over 50%, RTVE announced it will increase its budget for its programming yet reduce resources allocated for staff, and this includes TVE's coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics, which will receive 30 million euros. Guessing RTVE will try to have much of its staff stay in Madrid for this.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2013/09/22/television/1379879341_509654.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2013/09/22/television/1379879341_509654.html%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D879%26tbm%3Dnws

Chris Chelios joins Michelle Kwan and Picabo Street (will get to her press release soon) as analysts in FOX Sports' Olympic talent roster for Sochi. Chelios will handle the hockey news and his thoughts in Sochi.

http://www.sportingnews.com/nhl/story/2013-08-05/chris-chelios-fox-sports-analyst-2014-olympics-sochi-games-red-wings-coach

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2013/08/06/chris-chelios-added-to-fox-sports-1-talent-roster-243511/20130806fox01/

Kobukoru gets chosen by NHK to compose the network's Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic theme song for the duo is known as "artists who have the power of expression to reach people's hearts."

http://www.tokyohive.com/article/2013/09/kobukuro-to-be-in-charge-of-sochi-olympics-nhk-theme-song-new-album

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chris Chelios joins Michelle Kwan and Picabo Street (will get to her press release soon) as analysts in FOX Sports' Olympic talent roster for Sochi. Chelios will handle the hockey news and his thoughts in Sochi.

Picabo Street to work for Fox at 2014 Olympics

For what it's worth, this was first announced back in April

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eventually got it.

http://www.progressive-sports.com/picabo-street-fox-sports-analyst-2014-olympic-games/

Makes me wonder who's going to be involved with Yahoo! Sports' 2014 Winter Olympic coverage. The quality in the Summer Games was very good from them. So I expect nothing different.

The BBC now permits "amazing advertising opportunities" around Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics sports news coverage on BBC World News and bbc.com http://advertising.bbcworldwide.com/home/advertisewithus/whatsnew/winter-olympics-2014

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sochi 2014 wasn't the only winter thing SVT lost to Viasat--not to mention Rio 2016--after so many years as the Swedish Olympic broadcaster. Word is getting around there (and since confirmed) that SVT Vinterstudio host Per Elofsson will ditch SVT and head for Viasat to join Karolina Kluft, Anja Paerson, and Annette Norberg to become its cross-country skiing analyst as Elofsson "seeks a new, exciting, and innovative challenge" after enjoying his time at SVT. Michael Jung Lind is also confirmed as an alpine skiing analyst with Matthias Branholm as a reporter. In the Viasat press release confirming his arrival, Elofsson discusses the state of the Swedish cross country ski team.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://archive.is/lpRKd&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.expressen.se/sport/langdskidor/per-elofsson-lamnar-svt--klar-for-viasat/%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D852

http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/viasat_sverige/pressreleases/viasat-vaervar-elofsson-blir-ny-expert-i-sotji-os-906092

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/viasat_sverige/pressreleases/viasat-vaervar-elofsson-blir-ny-expert-i-sotji-os-906092&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/viasat_sverige/pressreleases/viasat-vaervar-elofsson-blir-ny-expert-i-sotji-os-906092%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D852%26tbm%3Dnws

Exact same Sochi 2014 promo from Network Ten but with the Southern Cross logo in its place

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NBC Sports gets fewer sponsors--usual suspects Coca-Cola, Proctor & Gamble, McDonald's, Visa, AT&T, BMW, General Motors, Citibank, Kellogg's, and General Electric and first timers BP and Liberty Mutual--but still a US Winter Olympic TV ad record $800 millions in ad sales for Sochi

http://adage.com/article/media/nbcu-sold-a-record-800m-winter-olympics-ads/244454/

North of the border also just announced today, CBC/Radio-Canada enlists Canadian Tire Corporation (Canadian Tire and Sportchek), Visa, McDonald's, Air Canada, Suncor Energy and its Petro-Canada brand, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Bell Canada, Modelz (makers of Oreo, Dentyne, and Cadbury), Panasonic, and Proctor & Gamble for CBC/Radio-Canada's media partnership on TV, online, mobile, and radio for the Olympics with more coming closer to Sochi. Hudson Bay Company is sure to be among them with its 2014 Olympic gear already hitting there. Athlete relationship and features with integration into television and digital promotions from Canadian Tire, Sport Chek, and P&G will be prominent for this

http://www.broadcastermagazine.com/news/cbc-radio-canada-announce-olympic-media-partnershis-for-2014-sochi-winter-games/1002625611/

ARD (aka Das Erste) will cover 8 days of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics from 7:30-20 (7:30am-8pm) as opposed to ZDF's 9 days and will cover the Closing Ceremonies. It and ZDF already got their media sponsors lined up, including the national ones for Germany.

http://ard-werbung.de/showroom/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Sport/Road_Map_Olympia_2014_02.pdf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ceska Televize enjoyed a significant increase in TV viewership with the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics with CT2 and CT4 covering both for a total of 570 hours entirely in HD, despite a 9-hour time zone difference between Vancouver and Prague. For Sochi, CT has desgnated CT Sport (formerly CT4 following last year's Ceske Televize rebranding) to broadcast them live in HD with a major broadcasting 14-hour block from 6am-11pm Czech Republic time for 16 days of continuous Olympic broadcasting--including both ceremonies. There will be recordings that will include up to 60 minutes of daily Olympic hockey coverage, which TV Nova and Nova Sport in the Czech Republic now exclusively has, which will also be present online. 5 additional streaming channels will be made available online at CT's website.

Daily summaries will hit at 8pm surrounding the day's key events with quick news, highlights, interviews, reports, stats, competitions, medals, quick summaries, etc. from the Olympic Studio, which will be located directly at the Sochi venues with direct access to the Czech Olympians (CT is the main media Olympic partner) and backstage access to them. Not surprisingly, coverage will be heavily favored to the Czech Team with news and complete info on them, especially when they have a strong medal chance. All this on Page 3. More stuff, as well as CT's Olympic advertising plans, can be on seen Ceske Televize's Sochi 2014 Business Plan Document.

http://img.ceskatelevize.cz/boss/document/129.pdf?v=2

http://www.parabola.cz/clanky/5066/zoh-2014-na-ct-sport-v-hd-rozliseni-plus-5-on-line-kanalu/

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=cs&u=http://www.parabola.cz/clanky/5066/zoh-2014-na-ct-sport-v-hd-rozliseni-plus-5-on-line-kanalu/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dnova%2Bsport%2Bzoh%2B2014%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D930

Interesting to note that Mikael Junglind and Anja Paerson are going to be reunited at Viasat for its Olympic coverage. Junglind was Anja's former skiing coach.

http://www.skovdenyheter.se/nyhet/63698/IFK-coach%20blir%20OS-kommentator

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.skovdenyheter.se/nyhet/63698/IFK-coach%2520blir%2520OS-kommentator&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dviasat%2Bos%2B2014%2Bmickael%2Bjunglind%26biw%3D1262%26bih%3D912

Viasat's press release announcing Per Olafsson's arrival at Sochi's cross country skiing analyst with his photo

http://www.viasatsport.se/os/press/viasat-varvar-elofsson-blir-ny-expert-i-sotji-os/

Before Olafsson, Viasat earlier took away another SVT sports personality for the Olympics in reporter Mattias Brannholm, who was there for over 20 years:

http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/sportitv/article17193737.ab

All of Viasat's Olympic TV promos do not appear as of yet on Viasat's You Tube channel. But that's OK because we can find them all on Vimeo, which seems to be the alternative to that major entity. All of them were produced by Stockholm-based Johan Hallsten and are all on his Vimeo channel. One has Viasat Sport star studio host and journalist Ola Wenstrom speaking how exciting for Viasat to cover the Olympics like never before in Swedish TV history as its most ambitious sports TV project ever in its short history as its new home--and being the best in reporting carrying over to that. Another has Goran Zachrisson's voiceover on the power of the Olympics. And another is a general one that you would see anywhere using footage from the previous Winter Olympics and showing the competition and emotions from Vancouver, Torino, and Salt Lake City focusing on Swedish Winter Olympic medalists.

http://vimeo.com/channels/johanhallsten/74917167

TVP Sport will become the fourth channel in the TVP Polska family to go HD in January, well ahead of time for Sochi 2014.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://www.wirtualnemedia.pl/artykul/tvp-sport-bedzie-nadawac-w-hd-od-2014-roku&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.wirtualnemedia.pl/artykul/tvp-sport-bedzie-nadawac-w-hd-od-2014-roku%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D930%26tbm%3Dnws

An update--and resolution--over Norway's TV2 Olympic advertising break plans in Sochi was reached with consent from the Norwegian Ministry of Culture. Norwegian Olympic TV fans should be happy

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=http://www.kampanje.com/medier/article6861949.ece&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.kampanje.com/medier/article6861949.ece%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D930%26tbm%3Dnws

Brazil will send its first ever female figure skater to the Winter Olympics in Sochi with 17-year old Atlanta-born/DC-raised Isadora Williams, as this TV Record Olympic piece reports from Esporte Fantastico by Paula Moraes. She competes for Brazil by virtue of her Brazilian mother Alexa. When Isadora placed 8th in the short program and later 12th at the free skate, placing 12th overall, in the Nebelhorn Trophy just last month, the final qualification for Sochi in figure skating, she was able to give Brazil one of the final six Olympic qualification spots for nations that has not previous qualified a ladies' entrant. She'll turn 18 just as the Games start!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well at last I can find some more consistent info regarding the broadcasting news from NTV Plus, Channel One, and the Russia channels from Russia.

NTV Plus' Sochi 2014 coverage will significantly be produced with the aid of Calrec's two further multichannel 48-fader Artemis Beams and a Hydra2 router core (continuing on from London and Wimbeldon as the company's first Russian client), which have been installed in the broadcaster’s Moscow studios to allow 5.1-channel surround operation and console sharing between its four studios and to prepare for the 2014 Winter Games. Okno-TV will also permit NTV-Plus the renting of five additional consoles for Sochi. All this set-ups paves the way for a 24/7 NTV Plus Sports terrestrial channel hitting in time for Sochi and its Olympic-related programming. Sound studios are also being upgraded for voiceover work for incoming sports feeds.

http://www.fast-and-wide.com/faw-news/4844-ntv-plus-prepares-for-2014-winter-games

NTV Plus will feature the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics in the new 4K Ultra format

http://qazmedia.kz/en/index.php/news/publication/325-ntv-plus-will-show-sochi-olympics-ultra-hd-format

Since it seems that this Russian coalition of Olympic broadcasters is not as unifying as others around the world from the likes of Canada to Japan, the challenge for among Perviy Kanal, VGTRK, NTV Plus, and ANO Sports Broadcasting is come up with a national signal for all Russians to be under. You will see more pro-Russian visuals and recall Soviet-era Winter Olympics glory during the course of the Olympics coverage as opposed to just having the OBS international feed. Needless to say, Russia had to upgrade its technology to premier world standards and utilize 12 mobileTV stations and built, with help from NBC, a media room. We'll know more as we go along.

http://voiceofrussia.com/2012_05_22/75574906/

Guess what? Kazakhstan, fronted by local businessman Kenes Rakishev, developed virtual 3DTV channels for Sochi in which Russia's Channel One (ORT) bought for its portion of the coverage in the $20 million investment. In fact, all the Russian HD channels want this technology, says Rakishev.

http://qazmedia.kz/en/index.php/news/publication/174-kazakhstan-has-developed-a-three-dimensional-virtual-tv

Could the new KAZsport channel show the round the clock Olympic coverage next year from Sochi? I think so. Dentsu could very well sell the Kazakh rights to it along with El Arna and Khabar Media. Could also provide some Russian language coverage.

http://www.aib.org.uk/kazsport-tv-channel-launched/

Filming of the Official Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Film "Rings of the World" is already underway directed by international award winner filmmaker Sergei Miroshnichenko. Slated for a September 2014 release

http://www.sochi2014.org/en/media/press-center/74194/

"WildRed" Group of companies will supply and install the hardware and software for the community area television network (CATV) and will receive the OBS feeds at all the Sochi Olympic venues and other Olympic areas during the Games (up to 5000 TV sets there)

http://www.sochi2014.org/en/media/press-center/74273/

Who are you gonna call for anti-virus software supplies? Kaspersky Labs!

http://www.sochi2014.org/en/media/press-center/63209/

It remains to be seen what kind of role will the upcoming Sport 24 will have for Sochi when it launches this fall. Maybe it will become the Olympic News Channel for the participating Russian channels. Maybe it will provide coverage of some Winter Olympic sports with news (think RDS INFO Sports in Canada). This article reports through Izvestia newspaper that fates of VGTRK/RTR's Sport 1 and Sport 2 was undecided as of this time. Hopefully, they will stay on for Sochi.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://lenta.ru/news/2013/08/29/guberniev/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dvgtrk%2Bsochi%2B2014%26start%3D20%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D856

RTR plans a project Sochi 2014 preview show called Team 2014 with Dmitry Guberniev, which tells about the potential stars of the Sochi Olympics.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://lenta.ru/news/2013/08/29/guberniev/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dvgtrk%2Bsochi%2B2014%26start%3D20%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D856

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1000-person strong with TV specialists and staff from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan, Sochi, Yekaterinburg, Khabarovsk, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, and Ufa. Dozens of high-end vehicles including dozens of hi-end vehicles with state of the art equipment including three 24-camera, four 16-cam and five 10-cam OB vans, a mobile master control room, 7 DSNGs, 13 mobile power units, 2 special cameras vans. Meet the Panorama team! All of them making its rectangular logo in Kazan during the Universiade like filmmakers typically do.

http://www.panoramahd.ru/en/news/1346

TVA returns to the Canadian Olympic broadcasting after almost 20 years away. I only know of two Winter Olympics it was involved in: Calgary 1988 teaming up as the French-Canadian Olympic TV broadcaster to CTV and TSN and Lillehammer in 1994 also in association with CTV. Things have changed since then with TVA now having its own sports channel TVA Sports, now enetering its second year, to Bell-owned rival RDS. Based on what I'm seeing now, Radio-Canada Television will deal with the free-to-air stuff from Sochi, and TVA will handle the cable side of things in the French language. TVA's coverage apparently will start on February 8 and will be close to 24 hours a day during the Sochi Winter Olympics. Like RDS has done, its coverage will focus on several sports that Quebec athletes and even English Canadian ones are strong in and have appeal to the French-Canadian Quebecois audience. Greater details will arrive soon. At first, I pondered TVA Sports will do the French version of the Rogers Sportsnet 200-hour Olympic portion. Might be a little more evolved than that. Looks as though that RDS is still a major part of this, but its details aren't yet forthcoming as that sports network has been synonymous with the French-Canadian cable Olympic broadcasts. It has learned very early on the value of sharing the production costs of even the French coverage portion. If so, maybe TVA Sports can provide a greater reach of the French coverage of Sochi as a sports speciality channel within all of Canada on TV. Would like to see them show the Opening Ceremony like CBC, Radio-Canada Television, TSN, RDS, and Rogers Sportsnet all surely will like in Vancouver, especially in the last three. No promos yet but they're coming

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://tvasports.ca/sports-hiver/les-jeux-de-sotchi-tva-sports-2052013&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtva%2B2014%2Bjeux%2Bolympiques%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D908

Update: I just found out TVA proper also did Innsbruck 1976, Sarajevo 1984, and Barcelona 1992. I also understand that CBC speciality channels like the CBC News' French version, RDI, Explora, and ARTV are also be involved for the Sochi broadcast. So that's going to be 8 channels for the French side in total.

A couple of clips I found on YouTube yesterday that recalls TVA's time as the French-Canadian Olympic channel and had an even more limited reach back then to just Quebec and a little bit of Ottawa. Both from 1994 to harken back that era it last did. The first one is perhaps the opener for TVA's evening coverage of the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics with Jean-Luc "Big Air" Brassard winning gold at the moguls freestyle skiing. Like with a lot of broadcasters around the world not named CBS and likely CTV and BBC, it used the official Lillehammer intro and then the Ford Canada, Kellogg's, McDonald's, and Petro-Canada sponsors

It was getting late into the duration of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics. TVA reveal the medals results and how the Canadians fares medal-wise, a report on Cathy Turner winning gold in short track, with TVA's evening studio anchor ending that portion--don't know his name. It closes with same Lillehammer intro with Coca-Cola Classique, IBM, and Canada's Dairy Farmers going along with Ford Canada. In the end credits, I noticed Air France was the travel provider, outfits by Joff, and Gaetan Boucher was among the reporters. Gotta be the former speed skater.

Anna Pushkova for TV2 Norge's Olympic figure skating analyst in Sochi?

http://www.vg.no/sport/artikkel.php?artid=10126897

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Based on what Radio-Canada syas when it got Quebecor's TVA along with RDS back in May, the 8 French-Canadian Olympic TV channels as it stands are: Radio-Canada Television, RDS, RDS 2, RDS INFO, TVA Sports, RDI, ARTV, and Explora. Seems as though French-Canadians will see everything on TV, more so than in Vancouver even with brand new events. We'll see what the breakdown of the Sochi Winter Olympic sports they'll cover as I expect they'll officially be revealed between October-December. More likely November. Not sure yet if both ceremonies will be exclusively on Radio-Canada Television--would like to see an emulation of the all the French portion of channels involved get a simulcast of them like in Vancouver. But since it was held in Canada, the interest to do that may not as high. Yet, some of them may reair later that night on prime time, late night/early morning, or in the next day's daytime hours. Radio-Canada Television would very much like to have key Winter Olympic events like all of Team Canada's men's hockey matches with their own version of Hockey Night in Canada and the women's free skate figure skating; it can act as a hub with live look-ins and thus enbcourage viewers to head to the other networks for fuller coverage. RDI could show a handful of events daily like what RDS INFO did in Vancouver. Speaking of RDS INFO, I could see that now being the designated 24-hour French Olympic news channel, but surely it would like to let Quebecois know about sports going on during the Olympics so that those French Canadians who have no interest in the Olympics whatsoever won't be left out in the cold.

TVA Sports says it cover sports that are of great interest and show French. Seems to me it will show short track, speed skating, curling, some non-Canada ice hockey games, and . Since TVA and Rogers Sportsnet seem to have a partnership in broadcasting following the former's inception, I'll assume TVA Sports team will do those events as part of the French version to whatever Rogers Sportsnet is doing. RDS and RDS2, I'm assuming, with the expansion of channels to do exact covering of whatever TSN and TSN2 is doing but in French. Explora and ARTV might come in for broadcasts of events that don't register highly with Canadians in general only for a handful of a day.

It is still not known whether the multilingual networks--OMNI, APTN, and ATN--will rejoin in this. My guess is we'll hear about them in the next three months after any negotiations, presuming the interest is there to rejoin. Would like to see them return for its add a multicultural dimension of interest that Canadian society likes to promote and embrace even with its current challenges. Those networks can go back to what it previously did in Vancouver with select events that will cater to those specific audiences. In the case of APTN, it can do again English, French, and native regional Aboriginal languages blocks during the day. OMNI might expand the range of languages to offer specific events/highlights to include German, Russian, Korean, Arabic, and Spanish, ditto for the ATN channels in the various South Asian languages in its stable. On the other hand, since the Winter Olympics are not in Canada this time, the national interest may not be as there to committ to it as it is with English and French.

Another TVA Lillehammer 94 piece I found that uses the official Lillehammer intro with TVA's own Olympic logo with the broadcast sponsors Ford Canada, McDonald's, Royal Bank of Canada, and Petro-Canada

By now, you heard there are new next-gen video game consoles that are hitting very soon in the forms of Sony's Playstation 4 and Microsoft's XBOX One. With tablets and smartphones already firmly involved in the Olympic media with apps, there's clearly no reason why the next-generation video game consoles can't get on board with their high-powered everything-but-the-kitchen-sink capabilities including social media, Internet, TVR, cloud-basing, 3D(?), app integrations, console store merchandise, and sharing. So far, Viasat in Sweden is the only Olympic media rights holder that has declared plans for consoles. With the releases slated for November, there certainly will be a wait until after they all hit before any such announcements are made. Look for things to happen by mid-January, likely earlier. Possible that there's a wish for broadcasters offering that during negotiations to make the format more unifying for residents and ensure geoblocking (especially in PS4's case with video games worldwide, used or not, are not to be region-blocked regardless where one owner lives). Major markets will get a hold of these consoles and will tap into the Olympic interest there to attract young people. Be fun to see the developments come up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...