Beijing Winter Olympics Coverage

Jeffmister · February 2, 2022, 7:05am

With competition beginning tonight, it’s worth raising the Olympics News Access Rules (NAR) since it’ll limit/restrict how non-rightsholders will be able to cover the Beijing Winter Olympics. The rules are identical to the ones which were in effect for last year’s Tokyo Olympics. As such, there’s no need to update the broad outline I posted last year about how the NAR works:

Tokyo Olympics Coverage

Aside from Seven, other networks have to obey the 3x3x3 rule when it comes to showing Olympic content.

The rule restricts non-rightsholder networks to showing Olympic content 3 times a day during news programs for up to 3 minutes (highlights of individual events can’t exceed 1/3 of the event or 30 seconds, whichever is lesser ) and the 3 programs must each be 3 hours apart. Meanwhile, news channels can show Olympic content 6 times a day for up to 90 seconds each time. Considering they fall under both rules, the ABC is allowed to decide whether they’ll obey by either the 3x3x3 or 6x1 1/2 restriction.

Regardless of the rule they come under, non-rightsholders can only show content which has aired on one of Seven’s channels. If they want to show other content which hasn’t aired on Seven, they have to wait until midnight the next day .