United States Olympic Channel Provides Future Model

(ATR) The creation of a United States Olympic television channel is the newest development in the evolution of the IOC’s Olympic Channel.

Today, the IOC, United States Olympic Committee, and NBC announced the creation of an Olympic television broadcast channel available along with NBC Universal. The channel will initially be available on AT&T and DirecTV in the United States. NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel told reporters that he expects the channel to be on all cable providers, and negotiations will begin when current NBC distribution contracts are up. These negotiations would include Comcast, the company which owns NBC.

The channel is to debut sometime in the third quarter of 2017. It will broadcast Olympic Channel original content, NBC and USOC produced original content, and Olympic-related content that is already part of the NBC library. A decision on whether any content from upcoming Olympic Games would feature on the channel is still to be made.

Timo Lumme, Managing Director, IOC Television and Marketing Services told Around the Rings the channel idea was part of recent IOC-negotiated rights deals, including NBC. Lumme said the decision to create a broadcast channel in the United States was a "collaborative discussion" that serves as a model going forward.

"We believe, and have heard this from our broadcasters, that they see value in the concept of the Olympic Channel," Lumme said. "It is an additional discussion that is part of the rights negotiations."

Lumme confirmed that creating a broadcast channel is not a "mandatory" part of the rights negotiations. The IOC does believe the model will be tempting for broadcasters looking to "create additional value" on rights deals.

Mark Parkman, general manager of the Olympic Channel, told reporters the NBC deal was a natural "extension of [the Olympic Channel] platform." He said the channel will focus on pursuing similar deals with other world rights holders in 2017. Olympic Channel executives say the U.S. channel will only "amplify" the reach of the main IOC-run initiative.

"What’s currently on the [online] platforms will continue to be available, and some of it will be premiered on the [U.S. channel] in that territory prior to going on the digital platform," Parkman told reporters. "The experience will be just as rich today going forward in the future."

Zenkel declined to give figures of how many U.S. households the Olympic channel would be available in. He said that the "vast interest" Americans have in the Olympic Games would buoy the channel and make carrying it attractive to cable distributors.

"Our plan is to achieve the widest possible distribution of this channel," Zenkel said to ATR. "There will also be content distributed on NBC and NBC Sports Network. This should make this content available to a very, very wide audience."

Written by Aaron Bauer

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