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YouTube to stream three hours per day of Olympics

Google Inc.'s Youtube will be getting a small slice of the Olympic pie, the International Olympic Committee announced Monday.

Youtube will stream about three hours a day of exclusive content from the Olympic Broadcasting Services, an IOC subsidiary, on a dedicated site www.youtube.com/beijing2008) during the Games. The site will reach 77 territories that aren't officially covered by Olympic sponsors, including South Korea, India and Nigeria.

"For the first time in Olympic history we will have complete global online coverage, and the IOC will have its own broadcast channel and content production facilities," said Timo Lumme, the IOC's director of television and marketing services, in a release.

The Google feed will provide Olympic footage to the "young generations of sports fans" who are already going online for entertainment, Lumme said.

The broadcasts, which begin Aug. 6 when the first Olympic events take place, will include on-demand summaries and highlights of Olympics every day over the 17 days of competition.

Internet users from outside the 77 territories - including the U.S.- will be blocked from viewing the clips because digital video-on-demand rights in other areas were sold on an exclusive basis.

Olympics organizers have been presented with a challenge by the increasing numbers of people watching video online. While new media channels, from blogging to online video sharing, could potentially expand viewership of the Games, they also make it more difficult for organizers to control exclusive content, for which sponsors pay millions of dollars.

In Athens, online broadcast coverage was available only in a handful of territories. Blogging by athletes was forbidden, too. But this year, IOC guidelines say athletes are allowed to blog if it's "confined solely to their own personal Olympic-related experience" and does not include audio or visual content from within accredited zones at the Games.

Officials say providing quality video content across all media platforms - including online - will help reduce piracy because viewers will opt for professional video over illegal amateur footage. Youtube will be able to sell advertising around its Olympics channel, but only to Olympic sponsors.

The content is only expected to reach an estimated 200 million people because the numbers of online video viewers in the territories covered is relatively small. In comparison, China, which is not allowing the Youtube broadcast, has an estimated 180 million people using online video - but those viewers will be able to watch Olympics content from CCTV.com, the online arm of China Central Television, and its various partners. In the U.S., General Electric Co.'s NBC holds these rights.

As part of the deal, Youtube will conscientiously filter its content for people who violate the IOC copyrights on Olympics content (posting video clips from concerts and sporting events without permission are already against Youtube rules, but enforcement is inconsistent). That means that things like cell phone footage uploaded by Olympics-goers on the ground in Beijing will not be allowed.

Источник: Total Telecom

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