Picture format HDTV (1080i 16:9) Website Official website | Language English | |
 | ||
Launched 2017 (2017)
United States
August 21, 2016 (2016-08-21) Owned by International Olympic Committee
NBC Universal (United States) Slogan Where The Games Never End Profiles | ||
Olympic Channel is an over-the-top Internet television service to be operated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was launched on August 21, 2016, alongside the closing of the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Contents
Goal
The service's main goal is to maintain year-round interest in Olympic sports between iterations of the Summer and Winter Olympics, especially among a younger audience; it will feature coverage of competitions in Olympic sport, as well as short and long-form programmes focusing on Olympic athletes. The service will initially broadcast in English, but with subtitles available in nine other languages on-launch. Yiannis Exarchos, overseer of Olympic Channel and CEO of Olympic Broadcasting Services, stated that the service's content would focus primarily on the stories of athletes, arguing that "We need to take some risks and it’s better to take risks now because we're stronger than we’ve ever been. The personalities of athletes, their lifestyles, are something very, very attractive."
History
IOC president Thomas Bach, who originally proposed the concept of an Olympics-oriented television channel in 1994 when he was a junior officer of the IOC, stated that the service would be "the start of an exciting new journey to connect the worldwide audience with the Olympic Movement all year round". The channel will be produced out of Madrid, and was allocated a seven-year budget of US$600 million. The initial digital service will have an international focus, but the IOC stated that it plans to work with National Olympic Committees and local rightsholders to develop local versions of the Olympic Channel, which may optionally include linear television channels. The streaming platform will be provided by Playmaker Media, a division of NBC Sports Group.
International versions
At an industry forum in March 2017, NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel stated that NBCUniversal would launch a localized version of Olympic Channel in the United States later in the year.