Some More Olympic Tv Updates

[Tanaka_Ray]

Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union just completed their 42nd annual meeting in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia this past week featuring an announcement that ABU will produce over 3500 hours of live and pre-recorded Olympic TV footage during the 17 days of the Beijing Summer Olympics (19 if you count the two days of preliminary soccer prior to the Opening Ceremony) with assistance from Europeans, who were also in attendance at the meetings. 26 nations and territories will get involved in this, the most comprehensive Olympic TV project in the ABU's history.

I was just going over the TVNZ's Olympic message boards where "SarahP" mentions TVNZ's website will broadcast some events along with TVNZ One and TVNZ Sport Extra.

Continuing with the Asian Olympic broadcasting and what Tanaka_Ray speaks about Indonesia's Olympic TV plans, I will propose that government-run national TV network TVRI would take up the domestic, free-to-air TV rights for Indonesia; after all, if Indonesia's neighbors Malaysia's RTM and The Philippines' RTP can broadcast their Olympic portions featuring their own athletes and leave the more comprehensive coverage to the satelitte channels, then TVRI, if not RCTV, SCTV, or TPI, can do likewise with theirs. We'll find out more.

Because of the need to reach an agreement with NBC over the current US broadcast rights of the Olympics like footage and bringing sponsors aboard for ad revenue, that new 24-hour Olympic TV network the USOC is planning to hit the airwaves will not make it in time for the Beijing Olympics in August. I think it's just as well. We get worked up about what we're discussing on Olympic media news developments that the USOC TV could get lost in the shuffle. Better to come in after the flame is doused.

Sport Business: USOC's Olympic TV Channel Won't Debut In Time For Beijing

I too think it's interesting that USA is taking themselves out of the sports business after Beijing for the forseeable future. It's a bit of a surprise when looking at being under the NBC Universal family umbrella for several years now. I can remember, as small as I was back then, when USA would broadcast the NBA, the NHL, and the odd track and field event, later with the WLAF. Apparently with all of the more lucrative pro and college sports events currently locked up at ESPN, Fox Sports Net, CBS College Sports, and Versus, USA probrably felt there wasn't much left for it to claim the rights to.

So based on your post, I can watch Indonesia badminton player on TVRI huh ? thank for the info durban, I will set my UHV antenna to TVRI now, cos aI never wacth TVRI before

[olympics08]

Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union just completed their 42nd annual meeting in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia this past week featuring an announcement that ABU will produce over 3500 hours of live and pre-recorded Olympic TV footage during the 17 days of the Beijing Summer Olympics (19 if you count the two days of preliminary soccer prior to the Opening Ceremony) with assistance from Europeans, who were also in attendance at the meetings. 26 nations and territories will get involved in this, the most comprehensive Olympic TV project in the ABU's history.

I was just going over the TVNZ's Olympic message boards where "SarahP" mentions TVNZ's website will broadcast some events along with TVNZ One and TVNZ Sport Extra.

Continuing with the Asian Olympic broadcasting and what Tanaka_Ray speaks about Indonesia's Olympic TV plans, I will propose that government-run national TV network TVRI would take up the domestic, free-to-air TV rights for Indonesia; after all, if Indonesia's neighbors Malaysia's RTM and The Philippines' RTP can broadcast their Olympic portions featuring their own athletes and leave the more comprehensive coverage to the satelitte channels, then TVRI, if not RCTV, SCTV, or TPI, can do likewise with theirs. We'll find out more.

Because of the need to reach an agreement with NBC over the current US broadcast rights of the Olympics like footage and bringing sponsors aboard for ad revenue, that new 24-hour Olympic TV network the USOC is planning to hit the airwaves will not make it in time for the Beijing Olympics in August. I think it's just as well. We get worked up about what we're discussing on Olympic media news developments that the USOC TV could get lost in the shuffle. Better to come in after the flame is doused.

Sport Business: USOC's Olympic TV Channel Won't Debut In Time For Beijing

I too think it's interesting that USA is taking themselves out of the sports business after Beijing for the forseeable future. It's a bit of a surprise when looking at being under the NBC Universal family umbrella for several years now. I can remember, as small as I was back then, when USA would broadcast the NBA, the NHL, and the odd track and field event, later with the WLAF. Apparently with all of the more lucrative pro and college sports events currently locked up at ESPN, Fox Sports Net, CBS College Sports, and Versus, USA probrably felt there wasn't much left for it to claim the rights to.

Some of this are wrong! Two things:

1. RTP? It's for Portugal, not the Philippines! The cable system carrying Solar Sports also has their international channel. Aren't you forgetting that Solar will broadcast and not RTP? And they said today that with 87 days to go, 87 percent of tickets were sold for the 2000 Sydney Olympics! You're wrong!

2. The Indonesian channels you said are correct but the only thing that's wrong is RCTI, not RCTV. RCTI is from Indonesia while RCTV is the Venezuelan TV station shut down by President Chavez reopening a month later on cable.

To Tanaka_Ray, its U-H-F! Not UHV!

[Durban Sandshark]

Some of this are wrong! Two things:

1. RTP? It's for Portugal, not the Philippines! The cable system carrying Solar Sports also has their international channel. Aren't you forgetting that Solar will broadcast and not RTP? And they said today that with 87 days to go, 87 percent of tickets were sold for the 2000 Sydney Olympics! You're wrong!

2. The Indonesian channels you said are correct but the only thing that's wrong is RCTI, not RCTV. RCTI is from Indonesia while RCTV is the Venezuelan TV station shut down by President Chavez reopening a month later on cable.

To Tanaka_Ray, its U-H-F! Not UHV!

Yes, it's true that RTP is Portugal, but at the time of writing I forgot the exact network's name, and realized it long after I was done.

Again, simple carelessness applies for RCTI like with RPN-9. Venezuela's RCTV is already the highest-rated cable TV network in Venezuela, a nation that only 30% of the people have cable.

[Durban Sandshark]

Forgot to add the website to BOB

http://www.bob2008.com

BOB says 4000 hours will be produced, and with NBC getting involved, for example, with 3600 out of the footage. I take it there will be some stuff like intermission and end of event audience shots that won't make air in the US, press conferences, and other nations' post event interviews with athletes and coaches , etc to round it out. Hope the BOB logo will make it to US airwaves or online unlike Sydney, Barcelona, Lillehammer, Nagano, Torino, and Athens.

[Quaker2001]

Forgot to add the website to BOB

http://www.bob2008.com

BOB says 4000 hours will be produced, and with NBC getting involved, for example, with 3600 out of the footage. I take it there will be some stuff like intermission and end of event audience shots that won't make air in the US, press conferences, and other nations' post event interviews with athletes and coaches , etc to round it out. Hope the BOB logo will make it to US airwaves or online unlike Sydney, Barcelona, Lillehammer, Nagano, Torino, and Athens.

NBC's 3,600 hours of coverage doesn't come straight from the 4,000 that BOB is producing. If you take just their 1,400 hours of broadcast coverage, that includes studio segments, highlights, replays, etc. Plus what will probably amount to around 300+ hours of commercials. And don't forget, that 1,400 hours is probably going to double-count a lot of the coverage that is broadcast in both HD and SD, as opposed to in Athens where the 399 hours of HD coverage was completely separate from the SD coverage.

Now for the broadband coverage, there you might see some of the BOB logo. It seems likely that NBC will be very reliant on the world feed video and, as opposed to the usual broadcast coverage where almost any event is part of a larger show, here they can just show straight world feed video from the very start of the event to the finish (I certainly hope they broadcast their Internet coverage like that).

[Tanaka_Ray]

Some of this are wrong! Two things:

1. RTP? It's for Portugal, not the Philippines! The cable system carrying Solar Sports also has their international channel. Aren't you forgetting that Solar will broadcast and not RTP? And they said today that with 87 days to go, 87 percent of tickets were sold for the 2000 Sydney Olympics! You're wrong!

2. The Indonesian channels you said are correct but the only thing that's wrong is RCTI, not RCTV. RCTI is from Indonesia while RCTV is the Venezuelan TV station shut down by President Chavez reopening a month later on cable.

To Tanaka_Ray, its U-H-F! Not UHV!

Hahahah, you are so right, UHF not UHV : thank you for your correction

[Durban Sandshark]

NBC's 3,600 hours of coverage doesn't come straight from the 4,000 that BOB is producing. If you take just their 1,400 hours of broadcast coverage, that includes studio segments, highlights, replays, etc. Plus what will probably amount to around 300+ hours of commercials. And don't forget, that 1,400 hours is probably going to double-count a lot of the coverage that is broadcast in both HD and SD, as opposed to in Athens where the 399 hours of HD coverage was completely separate from the SD coverage.

Now for the broadband coverage, there you might see some of the BOB logo. It seems likely that NBC will be very reliant on the world feed video and, as opposed to the usual broadcast coverage where almost any event is part of a larger show, here they can just show straight world feed video from the very start of the event to the finish (I certainly hope they broadcast their Internet coverage like that).

Very true after rethinking about that even further. After all, with NBC spending billions of dollars for the right to broadcast the games for US consumers, the highest of all nations, it can more than afford to produce such customized coverage: packaged up-close-and-personal profiles on topics tailored to the audiences, in-studio interviews and other segments, highlights and replays, interviews with athletes after events and ceremonies (with innovative technology) all while covering America's best Olympians and sports with the cameras focusing on them or faves and foriegn athletes who may be familiar to Americans. They can produce and direct it without the aid or appearance of the BOB (or SOBO, AOB, TOBO logos). But of course, it costs much money. I'm such other nations do this to some degree on their broadcasts like the CBC, Seven, BBC, and Canal Plus; yet, they opt for the unbiased coverage in the world feed. Many nations' networks are frugal with theirs. Yes, I forgot about the commercials and simulcasted HD coverage, which can add up to a lot of hours each by themsleves.

I too believe NBC will be reliant toward the world feed footage where since there's little interest in the eyes of US consumers of say, men's epee foil prelims, their production won't be needed and won't jump in in progress and rather go from the start to finish.

Speaking of NBC, yesterday unvieled the TOBAGGAN line for NBC's Media Asset Integration for the Beijing Olympics. Just some more boring but crucial tech stuff. Just don't ask me why that is called such. (Date of press release is wrong though, should be May 14th)

MOG Unviels New TOBAGGAN

ARD/ZDF's digital channels involved in this endeavour are EinsFestival, EinsPlus (formerly EinsMuxx), ZDFinfokanal, and ZDFdocukanal. Are those channels going to do replays like they did in Athens? Because if so, that reduced the number of hours ARD/ZDF aired from 1400 hours. So far, it's 900 hours for Beijing. Will the rest go online and replayed there.

Teledeporte in Spain will air the Beijing Olympics, as I expected. The RTVE sports network will air the games 24 hours a day on its two channels for 16 days as La 1 and La 2 will do their share but not as comprehensive. Will there be encore presentations? Not only that, Teledeporte plans to air pre-Olympic qualifications tournaments that Spain is entered in like the upcoming women's basketball in Madrid (and already have in some cases like with field hockey) and will profile Spanish Olympic hopefuls with news on their progress for 15 minutes. I'll look for more details and translate them from Spanish tomorrow when Teledeporte's site goes back up.

Will SABC increase their coverage of the Olympics this year? It was 10 hours a day in Sydney and then jumped to 13 for Athens? Also, what about some Afrikaans coverage? Highly unlikely on that though.

I think NOS will show 400 hrs in total for the Dutch. Could be wrong

Notice that SBS, Australia's junior partner in Olympic coverage with the Seven Network, has a new and modified logo. But right now, there's little in the way of Olympic stuff out of them anyway, save for a press release announcing the renewing of partnership.

http://www.sbs.com.au

Norwegian can get the Olympics online from NRK Sport.

BBC Parliament, a British digital TV answer to our C-SPAN here in the US, will move aside temporarily this August on Freeview subscribers to make way for more BBC Beijing coverage. Explaining that MPs and assemblies will be on recess in August. Look for more info coming from the BBC next month; BBC One and BBC Two are expected to be involved but BBC3 and BBC4 will not have leaked footage.

[james]

SABC representing Africa broadcasting right in the Beijing sounds absurd cos it alone cannot meet the wide range of audiences in Africa. It should be noted that this presents a vague idea of TV audience in Africa, which the Olympic movement has being ignoring for quite some time now--- I think.

A clear table needs to be drawn by the Olympic commitee to curtail this no good Tv monopoly giants like NBC and its clonies.

There`s no discrimination in Olympic games and the media broadcast shouldn`t be exempted . If not there`s a need for us in the developing countries to whine and not be told to stop. The world cannot be so divided in watching these games meant for all by monopolizing the media due to affluence.

[Durban Sandshark]

Teledeporte's special subwebsite for Beijing 2008 is still currently down. Nonetheless, I just remembered from seeing it yesterday that the network will air everything from the Olympic Series and other Olympic docs and films.

Looking back in hindsight, NBC's boasting of the "Complete Olympics" makes sense to me only when all sports in the Olympic program, even the ones when the US failed to qualify in, made an appearance at least onece in its telecast. Not the abundance of hours in total because of course some sports get greater coverage than others. Obviously NBC's Athens coverage comes the closest until now with what the network is planning on both TV and online.

[Quaker2001]

Teledeporte's special subwebsite for Beijing 2008 is still currently down. Nonetheless, I just remembered from seeing it yesterday that the network will air everything from the Olympic Series and other Olympic docs and films.

Looking back in hindsight, NBC's boasting of the "Complete Olympics" makes sense to me only when all sports in the Olympic program, even the ones when the US failed to qualify in, made an appearance at least onece in its telecast. Not the abundance of hours in total because of course some sports get greater coverage than others. Obviously NBC's Athens coverage comes the closest until now with what the network is planning on both TV and online.

NBC showed everything from Athens. That was part of their advertising, that for the first time in history, all 28 sports would get at least some exposure in NBC's coverage. Obviously for a lot of sports, that only meant small amounts of coverage on cable, but compared to NBC's coverage in Sydney (the original Games boasted as "The Complete Olympics") which didn't hit every single sport. In Beijing, it goes without saying that this is the first time we'll see large amounts of coverage from every sport, including preliminary rounds of events that would never see the light of day on television, even with 1200 hours of coverage.

[Durban Sandshark]

Tanaka_Ray, I think we may have the answer to your hopes as to which network or networks the Indonesian TV rights to the Olympics will go to. According to Wikipedia's list of international broadcasters for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, RCTI, TPI, and Global TV (not to be confused with the Canadian TV network of the same name) will broadcast them for Indonesians. I wonder what sports will they each cover and how many hours of will they air both among and separately? FYI, I tried checking each of their respective websites for Olympic info, but none have any mention of the Olympics yet. Wikipedia doesn't say that First Media will be on board to provide immense supplemental Beijing coverage, or that the company itself hasn't officially announced it will do so. My money is that they eventually will with ASTRO and StarHub/MediaCorp doing so elsewhere.

Here's the article regarding BBC Parliament temporarily making way this August for BBC Olympic coverage on Freeview digital terrestial service due to not having enough spare space. It's important to note that Brits can still get BBC Parliament broadcasting their usual programming during that month on SKY TV cable and Virgin Media cable because of the far greater spectrum capacity there and still get all of the Olympics. Also it must be said that the BBC will now air 2450 hours of Beijing fun instead of the 2400 hours as originally planned. These days obviously, it's increasingly not uncommon to have TV networks worldwide that aren't sports-oriented (MSNBC, TV Asahasi, EinsPlus, ZDFinfokanal, SVT Barnkanalen, and CBC Documentary Channel) to get some degree of Olympic TV coverage.

BBC Parliament Makes Way For The Beijing Olympics On Freeview

[olympics08]

Tanaka_Ray, I think we may have the answer to your hopes as to which network or networks the Indonesian TV rights to the Olympics will go to. According to Wikipedia's list of international broadcasters for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, RCTI, TPI, and Global TV (not to be confused with the Canadian TV network of the same name) will broadcast them for Indonesians. I wonder what sports will they each cover and how many hours of will they air both among and separately? FYI, I tried checking each of their respective websites for Olympic info, but none have any mention of the Olympics yet. Wikipedia doesn't say that First Media will be on board to provide immense supplemental Beijing coverage, or that the company itself hasn't officially announced it will do so. My money is that they eventually will with ASTRO and StarHub/MediaCorp doing so elsewhere.

Here's the article regarding BBC Parliament temporarily making way this August for BBC Olympic coverage on Freeview digital terrestial service due to not having enough spare space. It's important to note that Brits can still get BBC Parliament broadcasting their usual programming during that month on SKY TV cable and Virgin Media cable because of the far greater spectrum capacity there and still get all of the Olympics. Also it must be said that the BBC will now air 2450 hours of Beijing fun instead of the 2400 hours as originally planned. These days obviously, it's increasingly not uncommon to have TV networks worldwide that aren't sports-oriented (MSNBC, TV Asahasi, EinsPlus, ZDFinfokanal, SVT Barnkanalen, and CBC Documentary Channel) to get some degree of Olympic TV coverage.

BBC Parliament Makes Way For The Beijing Olympics On Freeview

Something came to my mind about this...

You knoe it's TV Asahi! Not TV Asashi! (they aired sports already such as the World Figure Sakting Championships as part of their 50th anniversary celebration.)

Two of the three over-the-air channels operated by Solar were not sports-oriented. These were ETC and 2nd Avenue. RPN-9 already aired sports such as boxing, the NBA (Playoffs at this moment) and, this June, the Euro 2008.

I looked at the schedule of the Euro 2008 coverage on Solar Sports and RPN-9. Then I hoped that it would not happen during the Beijing Olympics (all matches that they will broadcast are scheduled in the morning). They will cover selected matches but they gonna air all matches in the knockout stage (e.g. quarterfinal, semifinals and the final).

More Details about Solar's Coverage of Euro 2008

[Durban Sandshark]

Teledeporte's website has been back up and running for a few days now for you to check out again. It says Teledeporte will air a daily 25-minute newsprogram leading up to the Beijing Olympics with info about the city and its culture. It will also air the Paralympics following the Olympic Games. I mentioned basketball and field hockey as part of the Pre-Olympic qualification tournaments Teledeporte will air. Others include volleyball, water polo, and handball--in a few cases it already has. Finally, Teledeporte's Olympic coverage will be in HDTV h.264 codec.

http://www.rtve.es/tve/b/teledeporte/index.htm

Getting into more news on the HDTV Olympic coverage worldwide: STV Sport, the upcoming all-HD sports channel coming from the government-run public broadcaster SVT, will begin its transmission in August just before the start of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Coverage will be available through satelitte, cable, and IPTV. Looks as though NTV-Plus will return to the Summer Olympic broadcasting scene with Channel One and Channel Two when it offers more HD channels devoted to Olympic coverage for Russians to go along with the 3 already there on its HD service, including HD Sport. Magyar Telekom rolls out T-Home TV IPTV that offers the Olympics on HD to select parts of Hungarian cities. Belgium's VRT will go high-def with its Olympics coverage on a separate channel from its own, albeit simulcasted, and its likely this HD channel will carry forward beyond Beijing. CCTV began broadcasting its HD channel, CCTV-HD, on May 1 to program the Olympics, sports, news, financial programs, documentaries, plays, movies, music, entertainment, and culture. NOS in The Netherlands will show everything from its Olympic coverage on HD, but it isn't as committed to HDTV yet as it is with ZDF, ARD, and Austria's ORF. However, Poland's TVP scraped plans to offer a DTH platform in time for August and the Beijing Olympics.

No news coming from TSN/RDS regarding its coverage and what sports they will cover yet. Surely they will be all in HD and possibly online too.

Moving over to Hong Kong, i-CABLE Sports will act as the exclusive Internet and mobile phone platform exhibition carrier for the Beijing Olympics as ATV and TVB do their terrestrial coverage for the final time. Benjamin Tong, Executive Director for HKG Cable TV announced earlier this month as he emphasizes the an:

-Free online access will be made available at 800 Wi-Fi spots including shopping centers and restaurants beginning May 5.

-It's similar to our NBCOlympics.com features: at least 4 free channels with interviews, related coverage, inside and outside the venues on their own time

-interactive features with a rich library footage

-live channels specifically toward focusing on Hong Kong and Chinese athletes and Internationals ones respectively

-look at the progress of your favorite athlete(s) and your favorite events

All of which Hong Kong residents can check out whenever they can. I visited the site, but it's all in Cantonese Chinese with no English translation or audio on the site.

[james]

That was great insight,pal!

[Durban Sandshark]

The website regarding i-CABLE Sports's portion of Beijing 2008. Everything's all in Cantonese Chinese and there's no English-language version so far. So it's hard for me who can't understand the language to navigate well. Everything can be called up whenever one has the leisure.

http://2008.i-cable.com

Future bids for the US rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympics will be up for grabs after NBC's current contract with the IOC is up following London. NBC surely has the inside track on paper, but it would be very interesting if ESPN and Fox ends up getting them--and surely they want them. The only connection ESPN has to the current Olympics is as one of the partners in Brazil with Globo and BandTV as ESPN Brasil. Already News Corp. got the rights for 2010 and 2012 with their stake in SKY TV in New Zealand and in Italy plus FOXTEL in Australia, and I remember thinking that Fox will nab the Sydney Games since its at News Corp's worldwide headquarters. Will they abandon their usual programming, even regionally in the case of Fox Sports, or create channels just for the Games? Both are far reaching worldwide, and that could serve as a troubling trend in the future--having one network owning the Olympics in television all over the world. I hoped to give you another article from Sports Business Journal relating more info NBC's Olympic broadband plans, but you need registration--the former article can do without the accompanying photo of the ugly Inge De Bruijn celebrating.

http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/59000

[Durban Sandshark]

I need to mention that it's too bad that CBS will not take part in the bidding for future Olympics. I think it's in part of the corporate shakeup that happed almost two years ago and of the already-full plate in sports like the NCAA Tournament, NFL, Super Bowl, and The Masters.

CCTV-HD is just the first in the plans for China to get entirely HD ready in 2015.

[baron-pierreIV]

I need to mention that it's too bad that CBS will not take part in the bidding for future Olympics. I think it's in part of the corporate shakeup that happed almost two years ago and of the already-full plate in sports like the NCAA Tournament, NFL, Super Bowl, and The Masters.

CCTV-HD is just the first in the plans for China to get entirely HD ready in 2015.

CBS has been doing just fine with its regular programming. So why should they want to take on another very risky project?

[mattygs]

There is currently quite alot of media in New Zealand about people wanting Sky TV (digital pay tv) split up in New Zealand, due to the fact that they are slowly getting an overwhelming dominance in live sport coverage here.

They already have the rights to Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 - due to the fact that it has Prime TV as its free to air broadcast partner.

I really cant imagine them covering an Olympic Games.

[Quaker2001]

And here's another big piece of the puzzle...

http://www.wtap.com/sports/misc/7296006.html

Scroll down to August. I'm sure that schedule is still somewhat tentative, but here's the info. Possibly the most interesting of all of these.. look at NBC's last block on August 23rd.

Fri., Aug 8

Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies

8pm-12am (NBC)

Sat., Aug 9

Olympics (NBC)

10am-6pm

8pm-12am

12:30am-2am

Sun., Aug 10

Olympics (NBC)

10am-6pm

7pm-12am

12:35am-2am

Mon. Aug. 11

Olympics (NBC)

10am-1pm

8pm-12am

1:05am-2:30am

Tues., Aug. 12

Olympics (NBC)

10am-1pm

8pm-12am

12:35am-2am

Wed., Aug. 13

Olympics (NBC)

10am-1pm

8pm-12am

1:35am-2:30am

Thur., Aug. 14

Olympics (NBC)

10am-1pm

8pm-12am

1:35am-2:30am

Fri., Aug. 15

Olympics (NBC)

10am-1pm

8pm-12am

12:35am-2am

Sat., Aug 16

Olympics (NBC)

10am-6pm

7:30pm-12am

12:30am-2am

Sun., Aug 17

Olympics (NBC)

10am-6pm

7pm-12am

12:35am-2am

M-F. Aug. 18-22

Olympics (NBC)

10am-1pm

8pm-12am

12:35am-2am

Sat., Aug 23

Olympics (NBC)

10am-6pm

7:30pm-12am

12:30am-5am

Sun., Aug. 24

Olympics (NBC)

12pm-4pm

CLOSING CEREMONIES

7pm-11pm

[DrunkWithBode]

Thanks for posting this. I've been on pins & needles waiting for NBC's schedule. Good to finally know what the daytime hours will be.

Sat., Aug 23

Olympics (NBC)

10am-6pm

7:30pm-12am

12:30am-5am

Interesting. I'd assume that 12:30-5 window allows for live coverage of the men's basketball bronze & gold medal games. They're scheduled to run from noon to 5, Beijing time. I'm still a little surprised that NBC couldn't get the gold medal game at a better time, but I'm sure I'll try to wake up at 2:30 or 3 AM local time and watch.

Also, check out the odd late night times on Aug. 11, 13, and 14. The late night show is almost always from 12:35 to 2, but on those three nights, they go on late and don't go off the air until 2:30. I'm guessing there will be some kind of live event they want to stay on the air and show.

[Quaker2001]

Thanks for posting this. I've been on pins & needles waiting for NBC's schedule. Good to finally know what the daytime hours will be.

Interesting. I'd assume that 12:30-5 window allows for live coverage of the men's basketball bronze & gold medal games. They're scheduled to run from noon to 5, Beijing time. I'm still a little surprised that NBC couldn't get the gold medal game at a better time, but I'm sure I'll try to wake up at 2:30 or 3 AM local time and watch.

Also, check out the odd late night times on Aug. 11, 13, and 14. The late night show is almost always from 12:35 to 2, but on those three nights, they go on late and don't go off the air until 2:30. I'm guessing there will be some kind of live event they want to stay on the air and show.

NBC tried with the basketball, but to no avail. Their goal was to get diving, track&field, and the basketball finals all in primetime as well as swimming and gymnastics, but couldn't get it all. But you're right.. the official Beijing competition schedule has the bronze and gold medal games being played from Noon to 5pm Beijing time, so the 5am off time for NBC makes perfect sense. I'm a little surprised that NBC is staying on until 5am ET to show the basketball final. With the exception of the 2002 World Cup final which ABC showed at 6am ET, I can't think of another event that got live network coverage in the middle of the night like that.

As for the odd late night times, there's an easy explanation for that... gymnastics. Unlike the swimming finals which should all be done by Midnight ET each night, the gymnastics ends at somewhat odd times, including 1 night that goes until 2am. I fear we could be seeing some 'plausibly live' coverage that NBC invented for us in Atlanta.

A couple of other time notes... the 7:30pm start times on 8/16 and 8/23 coincide with the running of the marathons, so those will both be shown live. And the 10am start times on the weekends will afford some live basketball coverage, including what I assume will be USA-China on 8/10 and USA-Spain on 8/16, as well as the Women's final on 8/23

[Tanaka_Ray]

Tanaka_Ray, I think we may have the answer to your hopes as to which network or networks the Indonesian TV rights to the Olympics will go to. According to Wikipedia's list of international broadcasters for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, RCTI, TPI, and Global TV (not to be confused with the Canadian TV network of the same name) will broadcast them for Indonesians. I wonder what sports will they each cover and how many hours of will they air both among and separately? FYI, I tried checking each of their respective websites for Olympic info, but none have any mention of the Olympics yet. Wikipedia doesn't say that First Media will be on board to provide immense supplemental Beijing coverage, or that the company itself hasn't officially announced it will do so. My money is that they eventually will with ASTRO and StarHub/MediaCorp doing so elsewhere.

Thank you bro . I checked in wikipedia and yup you are so right, RCTI , TPI, and Global TV (they are free to air TV) will broadcast olympic for free in Indonesia, but... FYI... until now I live in Indonesia, and until now (less than 3 months to the opening) they never broadcast any advertise about they will broadcast beijing 2008 (RCTI, TPI, and Global TV are in the same network MNC, which this is the biggest media network in Indonesia, they have 3 free to air channel, 1 cable tv, 1 national newspaper, few radios,etc) they just broadcast advertise about EURO 2008 again and again, I'm assuming that for Indonesia's channel will broadcast badminton and maybe soccer, but the biggest badminton channel in Indonesia is not under MNC group, the biggest badminton channel is in Trans corp group (Trans TV and Trans 7), so I'm not too sure that wikipedia is right, until they are officially news about which channel will broadcast beijing 08 in Indonesia. durban_shark I'll try to inform you if I get information about which channel will broadcast for Indonesia, and vice versa if you have any info please post it in this forum. Thank you , umh, add an info.. firstmedia is a cable network which we must pay to subscribe, and firstmedia area coverage is really narrow, only jakarta (the capital) and surabaya(2nd largest), so I think firstmedia won't get the right

[james]

Long time , Tanaka Ray?

You still do randomly come around. I can see that you are so much interested in Olympic tv updates these days.

[Tanaka_Ray]

Long time , Tanaka Ray?

You still do randomly come around. I can see that you are so much interested in Olympic tv updates these days.

Hi james... did you make a lot of friends now ? I hope so, sorry but with my condition now, I can't connect to the internet 24 houts 7 days a week now, so whenever I can connect to the internet I';; visit this forum GBU bro

[Tanaka_Ray]

durban_shark, sadly, I just try to browse to get some info in which channel I can watch beijing 2008 in Indonesia, and.. until now, there is no confirmation about which channel will broadcast it, I browse to RCTI, TPI, Global tv, even to their parent MNC, and there is no news about it, I also try to MNC's cable TV (Indovision) and still the result is same... I read some gossip that Trans corp group will broadcast for the badminton event but.... until now there is official result about it too, so for Indonesia (until now) there is not broadcaster tv yet