No FTA for Olympics 2014 - 2016

[Mr Angry]

EACH of Australia's three free-to-air television networks have pulled out of the race to televise the next Olympic Games.

The Australian reports that the Seven Network recently withdrew from the bidding process after the International Olympic Committee asked it to lift its offer - to one that at least matched the price paid to telecast the London 2012 Games.

Nine and Network Ten have declined to make an offer for the rights that would see the successful bidder earn the right to broadcast both the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Olympic officials are now growing increasingly alarmed at the apparent lack of interest from the top television networks.

The reason for the lack of competition for the rights is that networks, aware of the current climate and struggle to pull in the big advertising dollars, are watching their budgets.


The Australian reports that the Nine Network lost an estimated $25 million on London 2012.

The $120 million deal for London included Nine forking out $72 million, with Foxtel contributing the other $48 million.

LINK

Wow.

 

[Scott Gourley's Lovechild]

I'm not surprised, don't think I watched a minute of the London Games. They have to reinvigorate the Games, and moving away from tradition isn't working.

 

[whall15]

They're just playing games IMO.

As it says there Nine made a big loss on 2012, combining that with the fact that Rio 2016 is the worst possible timezone for the Olympics in Australia (iirc the minor events that Nine played at night like Rowing, don't even start until almost midnight, the major events like Swimming are on at like 4am) and the fact that the IOC want a payrise mean that it's unsustainable.

After a while the IOC will roll over and take a cut.

 

[Valheru]

I would think the Olympics would be on the list of events that has to be available on free to air, is that not correct.

Possibly in this case the time zone is a deterrent to bid. An event at 8PM local time would be 10 or 11AM here depending on whether they have daylight savings.

 

[Glenn]

ABC or SBS would do a better job of covering the games.

 

[Mr Angry]

I would think the Olympics would be on the list of events that has to be available on free to air, is that not correct.

I do not think that is how it works, if FTA did have it they would have to show it live.

 

[El Diablo]

They're just playing games IMO.

As it says there Nine made a big loss on 2012, combining that with the fact that Rio 2016 is the worst possible timezone for the Olympics in Australia (iirc the minor events that Nine played at night like Rowing, don't even start until almost midnight, the major events like Swimming are on at like 4am) and the fact that the IOC want a payrise mean that it's unsustainable.

After a while the IOC will roll over and take a cut.

yup

if the IOC don't drop their price they'll lose out

 

[BDR]

Maybe if Nine's coverage of London wasn't so irredeemably shit more people would have watched it.

 

[Twizzle]

lucky we have pay TV

 

[Big Sam]

Maybe 2 of the FTAs will make a combined bid and split the events 50/50?

For example, 7 could get the Opening C and Athletics, and 9 would do the Swimming and Closing C.

 

[Xfactor1979]

the gold medal finals for events are usually on at night and if its night time in the Americas, its in a convenient time zone in Australia (ie the middle of the day). Case in point: night matches for the NFL, the MLB and the NBA are on mid morning to lunch time here

Unless the European powerbrokers have a say and push gold medal finals to the afternoon, where it suits their time zone for Europe to watch it in the evening.

 

[Danish]

Couldn't care less as I'll never watch another olympic event on FTA anyway. Foxtel's coverage shat on it from a great height, and forever will given it can have as many multiple channels as they want while the FTA networks are stuck broadcasting on a maximum of 3 channels at the moment.

I agree though that the olympics needs a revamp, largely by just removing the stupid fad events and sticking with the original events.

 

[Timbo]

Ten has stepped in for the 2014 games.

 

[Tommax25]

Couldn't care less as I never watched any of the previous olympics as I am not intrested in athletics and the like, but I'm curious. Do people wacth athletics, swimming ect throughout the 4 years before an olympics? Or is it just when the olympics come around that people care? Because it seems I almost never hear anyone mention anything olympics related, it barely gets any press, I don't see it on fta too often, but all of a sudden every four years everyone loves watching swimming and sprinting ect.

 

[ek999]

I'm pretty sure most people just watch it because it is the Olympics. I don't mind watching swimming and athletics world championships etc though

 

[Danish]

Couldn't care less as I never watched any of the previous olympics as I am not intrested in athletics and the like, but I'm curious. Do people wacth athletics, swimming ect throughout the 4 years before an olympics? Or is it just when the olympics come around that people care? Because it seems I almost never hear anyone mention anything olympics related, it barely gets any press, I don't see it on fta too often, but all of a sudden every four years everyone loves watching swimming and sprinting ect.

Swimming is strictly an olympics only affair to me. Track athletics and middle/long distance running I watch regularly.

You don't hear about most olympic events between the games because the vast majority are still amateur sports. Essentially everything outside of the glamour events like athletics and swimming (or the stupid shoehorned in events like soccer, basketball, tennis etc) are still just pure competition for competition's sake, and as such don't attract much commercial attention.

 

[Danish]

As an aside another Olympic sport that is surprisingly interesting to watch live is archery. It loses the wow factor on TV because you simply cannot appreciate the distances involved, but viewed in person its freaking insane how good they are.

 

[RHCP]

I agree though that the olympics needs a revamp, largely by just removing the stupid fad events and sticking with the original events.

Yep. Hard to take it seriously when you've got all these f**king joke events like BMX racing.

 

[Xfactor1979]

Interesting to note sochi, host for the winter Olympics is based on the western side of the famous caucasus mountains

The word Caucasian was derived from that region to describe 'white' people

Interesting to note: sochi is located on the west side of the caucasus, and its 500kms away (and a whole lot of mountains) from the east caucasus region. The area where dagestan and chechnya is

However, its far enough from there to not worry about the possibility of a terrorist attack