Home Broadcaster Promises "All-Day Coverage" of London Paralympics

(ATR) Channel 4 sports editor Deborah Poulton tells Around the Rings the British broadcaster will provide 400 percent more Paralympic coverage in London than BBC did in Beijing.

Poulton spoke to ATR at the breakfast launch of her network’s plans leading up to next summer’s competition as well as next week’s one-year-to-go mark until the 2012 Paralympics.

"We want to do a 400 percent increase on what the BBC did at the Beijing Games," she said.

"What that means is all-day coverage from breakfast to the evening. Also, utilizing our digital channels, we’re looking at a 70-30 split across our main channel to our digital channel."

BBC broadcast events in a daily half-hour slot during previous Paralympics, but Poulton wants to give viewers far more access on Channel 4 next year.

"We would also have live streams on our website so as well as what you can see on the main and digital channel ," she explained, "so you can also go on the website and go to venues live to see what we are not showing on air."

The channel already broadcasts Paralympic sport via the series "That Paralympic Show" launched earlier this year, but Poulton still admits that one of the channel’s missions is to further raise awareness of the movement.

"Paralympic Sport has not been broadcast very regularly on any platform in this country, and that’s something we’re doing," she said.

"Our research shows that people are surprised by how good it is. They usually think it’s just ‘pat on the back’ stuff, which is wrong. It’s athletes training at the very highest level."

Poulton also echoed comments made last month by BBC Director of Olympics Roger Mosey that London 2012 will be the first truly digital Olympics.

Channel 4’s coverage will span across all platforms, according to Poulton, though the station is still in the planning stages of dividing up the content.

Poulton also acknowledged her hopes for large audiences throughout the Paralympics, especially given their location.

"Given these Games are home-soil Games, we expect there to be a halo affect around that," she said. "We are very positive about what will come next year, but it’s difficult to speculate what that might be in terms of figures."

Team Great Britain’s sitting volleyball team captain Emma Wiggs praised Channel 4, calling its planned coverage a "completely life-changing opportunity" for awareness of her sport and for Paralympic athletes in general.

"There is still a lot of naivety out there," she said.

"A lot of people don’t understand that we are all athletes who happen to have disabilities. We’re not disabled people having a go at sport. It is very much athletes on par with Olympians, but we just happen to have something else that goes with it."

Wiggs, who was left disabled by the Guillain–Barré virus, also spoke of how she and her teammates train more than 20 hours a week.

"We just want to be known as athletes for being athletes," she said.

Ricky Balshaw, part of Team GB’s Paralympic equestrian squad, echoed both Wiggs and Poulton.

"We’re not kids in wheelchairs having a go. We are proper athletes. This coverage is amazing as it puts us on a par with the Olympic sports," he said.

"There’s been a bit of a stigma for years that you can’t talk about disability, but speak to most disabled people and they want you to ask questions and are happy to talk about it. So it’s important to raise awareness of that and have the Paralympics as an individual entity getting its own publicity and exposure."

Reported in London by Christian Radnedge.