TV Execs Stunned by European Olympic Megadeal

(ATR) Current and former TV executives say the new IOC deal with Eurosport will have a profound effect on how the Olympics are seen on the continent.

"The BBC’s relationship with the Games, which goes back almost to the founding of the corporation, will inevitably be less rich," said Roger Mosey, BBC director for London 2012, in an op ed for The Guardian.

"That is a shame for audiences, though my friends at the BBC are saying that they will still try to maintain the Olympic link as best they can."

Jan de Jong, the chief executive of Netherlands Olympic broadcaster NOS, called the deal an "enormous blow" when talking to DutchNews.

On Monday, Eurosport and Discovery paid the IOC $1.4 billion for the rights to broadcast the Games across Europe for four Olympics - PyeongChang 2018, Tokyo 2020, and the 2022 Winter and 2024 Summer Olympics.

"This outcome is not, I think, just a function of the size of the license fee," said Mosey. "The fact is that public service broadcasters the world over are losing key rights to the soaraway inflation caused by pay TV."

He went on to point out that fees for events like English Premier League matches are far beyond the budget of a public broadcaster like the BBC.

Some countries, like England, have laws to keep the Olympics on free television. Sub-licensing deals are expected to be hammered out in several countries.

Mosey says sports should be more of a priority for the BBC.

"The corporation needs to fight as hard for its reputation in sport as it is currently doing in music and the arts. I sometimes found the BBC Trust less sympathetic to sport than they should been, given its manifest value to viewers and listeners."

Written by Nick Devlin

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