This happened last year during the Tokyo Olympics too, looks like it’s coming from NPC Media.
Whereas previously when play-out came from BCM, the production would control the “Live and Free” add-on (so they could chop-and-change in-program), while the “7” (or whatever channel) and “HD” stated on permanently. Not sure why they’re not doing this now, as it’d surely be harder to constantly communicate with NPC or for someone at NPC to constantly be monitoring.
Hello there! As you might been looking, I am from Mexico. Although a lot has been talked about the coverage from Australia and New Zealand, and in lesser degree, the US, Canada and Britain, few has been talked about the coverage in Latin America, and in the particular regard of my home nation. Latin America has been a very popular market for Olympic coverage, and high audiences are constant here, specially in South American markets, where their athletes are successful (for example, Colombia is very popular in cycling, Brazil is successful in soccer, and Caribbean countries, like Cuba and the Dominican Republic, have achieved great success at boxing and baseball, among other sports…). Mexico has also a great pedigree on the Olympics, mostly in the Summer ones, succeeding mostly in archery and diving. However, in our country (and in Latin America in general), there is very little strong Winter Olympic pedigree, despite multiple appearances. In many parts of the region, including mine, there are many places where there’s almost never any snow, and this hampers the ability to be competitive in the level of many of the most successful countries in the Games. This year, Latin American countries are having its biggest representation in a Winter Olympiad, with a combined 33 athletes representing nine nations (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru y Puerto Rico).
The low Winter Olympic pedigree in our region did not hamper the ability to offer a complete Winter Olympic coverage historically. In the case of my home nation, for many years, the big commercial Mexican TV networks, like Televisa and TV Azteca, and then SKY Mexico and TDN/Univision Deportes (before they merged as TUDN) on the cable side, used to cover the Winter Olympics, mostly all day long with broad FTA coverage, installing themselves in each host city with dozens of reporters, specialized programs, summaries and many hours of transmission, which brought them closer to many sports unknown to the nation. However, the decrease in Mexican advertising loads and rates, as well as the changes in the strategies of Mexican television stations (like the arrival of Netflix in Mexico; the decision to focus on more profitable sports propierties, like soccer; and the recent merger of Televisa and Univision) have been reducing the presence of Winter Olympics on Mexican television. They were some attempts by our nation’s PSBs, such as Canal 22 (dependent of the Federal Culture Secretary) and Canal Once (dependent of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional, a state-owned university focused on the technical and engineering domain) in Vancouver 2010, but offered few coverage hours and focused their coverage on popular sports (figure skating, hockey, alpine skiing and the ceremonies, among others); the lack of all-national coverage also hampered the ability to attract audiences (analog was still the dominant over-the-air method, and both channels only covered the big metropolitan cities).
In 2013, Mexican media insiders were stunned after telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú, owner of former monopolist Telmex and the 7th largest mobile network operator in the world, América Móvil, bought full broadcast rights to the Olympics in 2014, including access to the Winter Olympics, initially for the 2014-2016 period, but later extending the deal into 2024, allowing them to cover the 2022 Winter Olympics. At the time, Mexican Winter Olympics fans were wondering why they lacked access to NBC’s coverage (except those close to the U.S. border), but it was clear that they would now have an alternative. Slim was trying to expand into media and content due to the impeding arrival of Netflix in Mexico, first by buying DLA, a former subsidiary of Venezuelan company Claxson (it was sold to Slim in 2011 after the company wanted to focus exclusively on adult subscription channels) and then launching a news portal, UnoTV, to provide editorial content to the Internet users of its providers. The first step to offer such content was the launch of Clarovideo, a primitive OTT service which launched in 2014, designed specially for the Olympics, but featuring a broad scope of content inherited from the DLA acquisition.
To allow coverage of the Olympics to be broadcast, Slim successfully secured a deal with MVS Televisión, the largest owner of cable channels in our nation, to convert a very small sports TV network under their control, Viva Sports , into an outlet for their coverage, which was only available on their subscription platform, Dish, which was created in partnership with the American Dish Network. Additionally, Claro converted its exclusive sports channel in Colombia, Versus . This resulted on the creation of Claro Sports, which initially mixed Olympic coverage with unusual sports for our nation, like the AFL, Legends Football League, and even non-sports programming such as The Ultimate Fighter, Captain Tsubasa, and sport-related films; but the bread and butter of their coverage was and still is the Olympics.
However, they have since improved their non-Olympic rights and added live and/or delayed coverage of Olympic qualifiers, SEC college sports, and even rights to local soccer teams; they also increased its availability in my nation, establishing deals with 4 major operators and many smaller ones, but not with the two biggest operators in our nation, one of which is SKY México, owned by Televisa, which concentrate over half of the pay-TV penetration; it is also being exclusively distributed to Claro TV services continent-wide, except in Brazil and Puerto Rico, where Globo and NBC has exclusive Olympic rights respectively (Claro also offers their Olympic content, however), and in Mexico, where Claro lacks a license to operate TV (a problem dating to its monopoly status, hence the aforementioned distribution deals), as well as through OTT services as a free and/or paid channel, and directly through América Móvil’s own OTT services Clarovideo and Claroplay. It was also planned to offer both channels on Samsung TV Plus to users in the region (the same case as in Tokyo, where four channels were offered), but an impasse in negotiations caused the plans to fell through, even the core linear channel was removed from the service’s offer just one day before the Opening Ceremony.
Back to the Olympics, Slim had to sublet FTA coverage to the aforementioned PSBs for two reasons: one, Slim had an impasse with dominant Televisa; and two, the IOC preferred Slim to sublet coverage to PSBs, they additionally sublet coverage to ESPN and Fox Sports. This was the case in Sochi and Rio; although ratings improved thanks to a gradual extension of its coverage into 80% of the nation (possible thanks to DTT), the IOC was still unsatisfied with audience figures. As a result, for Tokyo, coverage was sublet to the three largest commercial broadcasters, Televisa, TV Azteca and newcomer Imagen, who only broadcast the minimum 200 hours pack of coverage. But this time, no other Mexican cable or FTA television channel has negotiated the total or partial transmission of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games. In Chile, TVN was able to do so, but exclusively on their linear domestic feeds.
Claro Sports is offering two live feeds 24 hours a day (the standard channel which mixes Olympic coverage with its other sporting rights, plus an exclusive temporary channel solely dedicated to the event), alongside access to up to five live winter sporting events streams simultaneously, offering up to 650 hours of transmission. The two linear feeds are being distributed directly, with the operators taking the feed from América Móvil, with the ability to insert local commercials and/or promos from each operator when needed. It is also being offered to their online partners.
Coverage is being produced fully remotely, with a small presence in Beijing; lacking the resources of its competitors, they are able to make-do creatively and focusing their coverage on sports than entertainment, with lots of debate and analysis. To contextualise this, in general, Mexican (and Latin American) coverage of sports events, including the Olympics, have a tried-and-tested presentation model of covering the Olympics which differs to the more serious approach to the games most rights holders do. Alongside live broadcasts and highlights, they integrate heavily sketch comedy skits, lots of fly-on-the-wall interviews and voxpops, some musical performances, cultural and travelogue fillers, and many unexpected segments and gimmicks. The broadcasters also tend to be very biased in favour of their national delegations, specially when covering soccer matches. The result is more of a pot pouri and a light entertainment show rather than a sport programme, and has received some criticism recently in Mexican media circles. They usually leverage each group’s sports anchors, news anchors, actors and comedians for the content of each coverage, and their best producers to make it as overproduced as needed.
Conversely, Claro Sports, as a newcomer and a subscription-first channel, is more serious and has a wide range of personalities, commentators and even specialist star-studded analysts, some of which appear on general coverage, but most only appearing during Olympic coverages. Most of the presenters at the channel are much younger than its chief competitors, but its analysts are very experimented veterans which have worked at other channels previously, and its coverage is less biased, as it is broadcast to 17 countries. They also have a more restrained approach to production, with a much less appealing but functional broadcast facility and not overusing AR/VR or distracting visual gimmicks (other than using an enormous rip-off of ESPN’s BottomLine, even used during live events).
After unsuccessfully trying to use the Olympic Video Player in previous editions (some of the criticism included the apps constantly crashing and the video feeds being affected by heavy demand), Claro Sports is offering all content on YouTube throughout Latin America in the 17 nations it covers; it is serving as its main video hub for the duration of the coverage, with its partners being secondary means for live coverage. They are posting the full events separately, both live and on catch-up, plus exclusive videos and excerpts of many of the key moments; they also have the two linear channels live. Some of the coverage is being exclusively broadcast in the platform. The coverage is monetized through Google AdSense in-app advertising, but YouTube Premium subscribers are also able to watch coverage commercial-free. "Although there are users who want to take advantage of the option of not having commercials with the subscription, what we see most interesting with this type of event is the way in which they consume the content, for example we have noticed that they consume more content on television than this type of sports,” Juan Pablo Robert, manager of Strategic Sports Alliances for YouTube Mexico, told business-focused magazine Expansión.
Claro Sports has also opened a free editorial website, a section in their portal in partnership with Spanish sports newspaper Marca, called Marca Claro. The service has access to its original editorial content and all YouTube embeds live, and real-time information and medal results, plus exclusive editorial material. It is also offering a selection of Olympic Channel shows on TV and online, subtitled in Spanish.
So, there it goes. I thank you for the time and disposition to read this post.
That is very interesting story about the TV Olympic coverage in Latin America, mostly they are spoilt for access live coverage through YouTube that something we never get in NZ unfortunately
Another afternoon with the scheduled programming pre-empted by Olympic coverage at least in Sydney and Melbourne - must have liked yesterday’s outcome.
Update: Olympics ran through to 6pm in Syd/Mel.
QLD went to The Chase at 5.30 Gold Coast went to news.
Ratings aren’t good for NBC in the US. They have the rights to the Super Bowl and will go straight into Olympic coverage right after the Lombardi trophy presentation
Bit isn’t this to be expected since the US has boycotted the games?
As above
Is sevens coverage live? It’s quite confusing with no live and free watermark
Nup, looks like they’re just showing highlights from this afternoon (where there were a number of Australian athletes and a number of medal events). I think ice hockey is on 7Plus live streaming tonight, which they’ve been pushing during the megawall, among other events. They’re, as you capped, also doing a lot of studio chitty chat and ad breaks.
The only event that took place before the aerials team final began (ie; between 7:30pm and 10pm AEDT) was that ice hockey game you referred to. It’s been a strangely light night for Olympic standards.
Who has the radio rights for the Winters in Australia? TIA
Mike Tirico is finally back home in the USA. Starting this week, and for the rest of the Games, the Primetime show he does is being produced out of Studio 1 in Stamford, already used for the ceremonies and Peacock.
Here’s a closer look at their sets. As it was with Tokyo, CBC’s coverage is being produced remotely, with two near identical studios for their coverage, designed by Kyle Sanvictores. Both sets are much bigger than the shoebox sets used in previous Games, an advantage of being produced remotely. One of the spaces is used for general coverage, and a secondary set is used exclusively for ice hockey coverage.
To make things clear, English coverage comes from Studio 41 in the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, and French coverage from the New CBC House (Nouvelle Maison de Radio-Canada) in downtown Montreal. An additional set was installed in the foyer of the Toronto building, used for English daytime coverage.
After Wednesday’s qualifying showdown, homegrown hero Scotty James is back to take on snowboarding royalty Shaun White in the blockbuster Men’s Halfpipe Final. Aussie Young gun Valentino Guseli lines up against his heroes in his first ever Olympic final.
The first Aussie to ever win a skeleton World Cup event, Jaclyn Narracott will head face-down the ice track, hitting speeds of up to 120 km/h as she kicks off her campaign. And it’s medal night in the men’s event, with Nick Timmings back in action for Australia.
Our top alpine skier Greta Small starts in the Women’s Alpine Ski Super-G, up against the great Ester Ledecka (CZE) who is looking for the double-double as she undoes the snowboard and locks into the ski bindings to defend her title.
And Australia’s Brendan Corey is back for the Men’s 500m Short Track Speed Skate after his sensational national record-winning performance on Sunday.
12.30pm Men’s Snowboard Halfpipe Final | Scotty James and Shaun White go head to head in the Men’s Snowboard Halfpipe Final, while young gun Valentino Guseli chases his first Olympic medal
12.30pm Women’s Skeleton | Queenslander Jaclyn Narracott begins her Olympic campaign in the Women’s Skeleton
2.00pm Women’s Alpine Ski Super G | Greta Small, Australia’s top female alpine skier, will be aiming to beat her 15th place from Sochi 2014
7.30pm The best action of Day 7 | All the action from the blockbuster Men’s Snowboard Halfpipe Final, as well as Jaclyn Narracott’s performance in the nail-biting Women’s Skeleton event|
8.30pm The Summer Chill | Hosted by Andy Maher, Jacqui Cooper and Andrew Gaze with special guests Tess Coady, Steven Bradbury and Paul Narracott|
10.20pm Men’s 500m Short Track Speed Skating | Brendan Corey continues his hunt for an Olympic gold medal after breaking Australia’s 1000m Short Track Speed Skate record
11.20pm Men’s Skeleton | West Australian Nick Timmings will attempt to qualify for the Men’s Skeleton Final in Heat 3
All times AEDT
Report on ratings for the games so far:
And according to guides, tonight is the first of that light panel show with Maher, Cooper and Gaze. Not sure if Hamish and Abbey get the night off or come in later before Basil and Georgie.
So it’s going to be just replays from tournament to date most of Friday night (what should’ve been a golden opportunity for Seven considering going into the weekend and little competition). Will be interesting to see how viewers respond.
No one unfortunately.
That’s a shame. Would’ve been good then for seven to have a DAB channel like they did for rio then
