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Discovery Lands European Olympic TV Rights
- Thread starter mvcg66b3r
- Start date
There will be a whole lot of nuances with this deal given the number of countries involved. One of the biggest, though, will be that Discovery must make 200 hours of Summer Olympic coverage and 100 hours of Winter Olympic coverage available "free-to-air" in each country. In this context, "free-to-air" generally is equivalent to the term "broadcast network" in the US, or, in other words, any channel that can be watched without a subscription to some sort of pay-tv service. Some countries may also, by law, require even more coverage than these base amounts to be on free-to-air TV, or they may restrict any Olympics coverage at all from airing on a subscription channel.
In any event, the free-to-air requirements are where the sub-licensing process will really come into play, especially since Discovery does not have free-to-air channels in all of the countries where they have just been awarded broadcasting rights. In addition, they don't even have a presence at all, free-to-air or otherwise, in every European country, and will probably end up sub-licensing all Olympics coverage to another broadcaster in these instances, unless they choose to establish a presence in the three years until this deal goes into effect. Even then, there are situations like France, where they can't even set up a free-to-air channel at present, since current law there prohibits a non-French company from owning a free-to-air TV channel.
The end result will probably be that Olympics coverage gets spread out among many more channels than ever before in Europe. Discovery's main channel for Olympics coverage will undoubtedly be Eurosport, which has many "local" editions throughout the continent but is only free-to-air in Germany, joined perhaps by the channel DMAX in the countries that have a version, and maybe by some of the various versions of Discovery Channel. To comply with the free-to-air requirements, this coverage will likely be supplemented with coverage from country-specific entities such as the public-service broadcasters that had long been the Olympic broadcasters in most European countries.
In any event, the free-to-air requirements are where the sub-licensing process will really come into play, especially since Discovery does not have free-to-air channels in all of the countries where they have just been awarded broadcasting rights. In addition, they don't even have a presence at all, free-to-air or otherwise, in every European country, and will probably end up sub-licensing all Olympics coverage to another broadcaster in these instances, unless they choose to establish a presence in the three years until this deal goes into effect. Even then, there are situations like France, where they can't even set up a free-to-air channel at present, since current law there prohibits a non-French company from owning a free-to-air TV channel.
The end result will probably be that Olympics coverage gets spread out among many more channels than ever before in Europe. Discovery's main channel for Olympics coverage will undoubtedly be Eurosport, which has many "local" editions throughout the continent but is only free-to-air in Germany, joined perhaps by the channel DMAX in the countries that have a version, and maybe by some of the various versions of Discovery Channel. To comply with the free-to-air requirements, this coverage will likely be supplemented with coverage from country-specific entities such as the public-service broadcasters that had long been the Olympic broadcasters in most European countries.
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