The BackPage Weekly | Paris Olympics: Why is everyone complaining about the TV viewing experience and what exactly has changed from previous Games?
By Jonny Madill
As we enter the final weekend of action in Paris, the 2024 Olympics have already gone down in history as one of the most memorable summer Games in history. There has been no shortage of cultural moments, emerging superstars and unlikely heroes – all of which have attracted mainstream attention through social media memes and digital content.
Indeed, figures released by broadcasters suggest that audience numbers across all platforms have been soaring (data released by the BBC and RTÉ, the lead broadcasters in the UK and Ireland respectively, show the impressive engagement levels across TV, online and digital platforms).
Despite this, one of the less positive stories doing the rounds on social media – much like three years ago during Tokyo 2020 – centres on the TV viewing experience. Once again, we have seen a raft of complaints, less so about the quality of coverage – rather the viewer’s limited ability to access different Olympic sports and events on free-to-air coverage, especially compared to previous Games.
A simple search on X of “BBC Olympics coverage” will give you a flavour of the frustrations many UK viewers have raised, most notably at live coverage ‘cutting away’ from sports at key moments of events and matches (fans’ outrage at being ‘cut off’ from the Djokovic v Alcaraz gold medal match feature heavily).
Whilst the landscape for Paris 2024 is largely unchanged from Tokyo 2020, the negative noises have perhaps been even louder this summer than three years ago. There also remains some confusion about exactly why the viewing experience is so different to Games gone by.
As a refresher to this piece from 2021, here is an explainer of how broadcasting and digital media rights are sold for Olympic Games coverage. The issues are not straight-forward, but this piece hopefully helps explain why the viewing experience in the UK and Ireland differs from pre-Tokyo Games.
Firstly, who actually controls the TV rights?
In short, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) controls how broadcasting and digital media rights for the Olympic Games are sold globally.
2015 was a key turning point. This was when the IOC sold its exclusive multimedia rights for 50 European countries (including UK and Ireland) for Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 to US company Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) in a ground-breaking deal reported to be worth £1.1bn.
One of the requirements of the IOC x WBD deal was that a certain amount of free-to-air coverage was to be guaranteed. WBD meets this requirement itself in a number of European countries. However, in the UK, it sub-licenses the domestic rights to the BBC. In Ireland (excluding Northern Ireland) it does the same to host broadcaster RTÉ. These domestic deals cover digital rights too.
Isn’t the Olympic Games a listed event in the UK though?
Yes it is. The Olympic Games is one of a number of 'crown jewel' sporting events under UK legislation which means it must be aired 'in full' on free-to-air by virtue of being a 'Group A' (Full Live Coverage Protected) event. This is unlikely to change anytime soon but what it doesn't do (as explained further below) is prevent so much live content being hidden behind a paywall, which might previously have been available on the BBC.
So what has changed from previous Games?
UK viewers were perhaps spoilt during London 2012 and Rio 2016, with up to 24 live streams available on BBC across the full suite of summer Olympic sports. This is a world away from the free-to-air viewing experience for Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024. Under the BBC's deal with WBD, only two live sports can be shown at any one time (one on main channel service and one via online/red button). To put this into context, the BBC is said to be showing only 250 hours of live coverage for Paris compared to 5000 at previous Games. There are no rules on which sporting events it may show live, meaning the BBC has faced the unenviable task of trying to share 32 sports between just two broadcasts.
Surely the answer is simply to subscribe to Discovery+?
WBD broadcasts live coverage on its two main sport channels – Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2. It also shows live and on-demand coverage of the whole of the Olympics through its ‘Discovery+’ streaming platform.
Therefore, for viewers in the UK (including Northern Ireland) wanting to watch their chosen sport live, an alternative is to go behind a paywall and subscribe by paying £3.99 (reduced from £6.99 in 2020) for one month, or alternatively access Eurosport channels elsewhere.
Some may argue this is a nominal amount which is more than worth it to get access to sport's greatest global spectacle on live TV, and that the Eurosport red button experience isn't too far removed from what many viewers are used to on BBC. The data suggests viewers have embraced the shift to streaming (Discovery+ audiences for Paris 2024 are said to have surpassed the whole of Tokyo 2020 by the end of day two, according to WBD).
However, for many fans of Olympic sports for whom the free-to-air and mainstream experience has become normalised, the shift away from familiarity has been somewhat of a culture shock.
What does this tell us about modern-day sports fans?
Subscriber growth might be booming on streaming services. However the scaled-back coverage on free-to-air is perhaps problematic not least because it goes completely against the viewing habits and behaviours that we have become accustomed to as modern-day sports fans. Consumers of sports content in the digital era are used to having multiple live streams at their fingertips rather than being prepared to wait hours for highlights or 'catch up' content.
In addition, many Olympic sports are incredibly reliant on the exposure and profile that mainstream live coverage on a platform like the BBC or RTÉ brings every four years, as a means of engaging a younger generation, increasing participation levels and attracting commercial partners. This has led numerous sporting bodies to continue to voice their concerns.
What about viewers in Ireland and fans of Team Ireland?
Irish sport is on cloud 9 after the nation’s most successful Games in history (13th in the medal table at the time of writing and 133 athletes competing, more than any previous Games). RTÉ has given fans in Ireland access to 14 hours a day of coverage across three daily programmes. Kellie Harrington’s stunning boxing gold medal win was the most watched sporting event on RTÉ for over a decade.
However, to say the media rights landscape in Ireland is nuanced would perhaps be an understatement (which is unfortunately par for the course when Irish geography, politics and sport collide). In essence, Northern Ireland (i.e. six counties of Ireland) falls within the scope of the BBC's rights deal with WBD, rather than RTÉ's deal which is limited to the 26 counties making up the Republic of Ireland for the purposes of broadcasting agreements. This differs to the way certain other major sporting rights are typically sold in Ireland, principally because of the approach the IOC takes to exploiting its rights for the Olympic Games.
What this means in practice is that viewers in Northern Ireland are unable to access RTÉ's coverage via a Sky or indeed other subscription due to geo-blocking restrictions. The nuance which has frustrated many is that a family of a Team Ireland athlete can sit and watch their chosen event live on RTÉ when in Dublin or Cork, but an hour up the road in Belfast an equivalent family has no option but to turn to Discovery+ or Eurosport.
What about the future?
Looking ahead to LA 2028 and Brisbane 2032, things are unlikely to change, and in fact could get even more complicated (and not necessarily for the better). Whilst the BBC and RTÉ will have the rights to live coverage on free-to-air, viewers can expect no more than the 250 hours of live coverage broadcast this summer by each broadcaster (compared to Discovery+’s 3800 hours of live coverage). In addition, future rights deals for Europe and legislative changes (from 2032 beyond) could see rules changing and other big players and challengers in the broadcasting space look to enter and disrupt the market and put further pressure on free-to-air coverage. There is also the potential for AI and tech innovations to continue to disrupt the media rights landscape.
The ongoing media rights debate in sport
In some ways all of this is part of a wider debate which has been circling within sport for some time, and one which extends far beyond just the Olympic Games: that being the ongoing battle between free-to-air and paywall and indeed whether both can exist in tandem and complement each other.
The eyeballs and exposure that free-to-air live coverage offers so many 'lower tier' sports (of which many are Olympic sports whose profile spikes every four years) is invaluable. The interest levels throughout this past week in the likes of gymnastics, taekwondo and skateboarding (to name but a few) are obvious examples.
On the other hand, however, there is no escaping the fact that paid-for-streaming services are, and will continue, to be on the rise (as supported by the data). Why? Because they guarantee much-needed revenue for sports rights holders.
The IOC, as well as being the guardian of the Olympic Games and the leader of the Olympic Movement, is ultimately a global rights holder. It is inevitable, therefore, that future decisions around Olympic Games media rights, as well as rights for other major global sporting events, will ultimately be driven by commercial factors, whether we as fans, and sports, like it or not.
