European Olympic broadcasting rights for the 2010 Winter Games and 2012 Summer Games were put on sale on Wednesday in a break with tradition.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said in a statement the tendering process would be open to all options — pan-European, multi-territory or country-by-country.
The move breaks with the tradition of negotiating only with the European Broadcasting Union consortium of 55 networks.
The IOC is inviting offers from broadcasters across the continent, following the same system used in awarding the United States television rights.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has held European rights for every Olympics since the 1960 Rome Games.
The EBU, facing an ongoing European Union investigation into its collective buying of sports rights, can bid again but the new procedure opens the possibility of rights going to rival satellite companies such as Rupert Murdoch’s British Sky Broadcasting.
Murdoch’s News Corporation put in a bid for the Olympics the last time the TV rights were on offer in 1996. But although he outbid his rivals, the IOC preferred to stick with the EBU.
The EBU paid a total of $578-million for rights to the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy, and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing — $135-million and $443-million, respectively.
The 2010 Winter Games will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, and with six European cities in the bidding for 2012, European broadcasters will be particularly interested in winning the rights.
Four separate broadcast/media packages will be available: audiovisual transmission, mobile platform transmission, audio transmission, and shared fixed-memory media (video/DVD).
For the first time, the IOC will launch an advertising campaign in major European newspapers inviting all broadcasters of the region and other organisations to submit tenders.
”We will be looking at offers expanding the promotion and coverage of the Olympic Games, embracing new technologies, broadening the choice for viewers, and guarantee the widest possible audience for the Olympic Games,” IOC president Jacques Rogge said.
IOC first vice-president Dr Thomas Bach, who is coordinating the European negotiations, said: ”Over the past few months the IOC has seen a very high level of interest from various broadcasters and media organisations throughout Europe to acquire future broadcast rights.
”The IOC will base its final decision on the financial offers and other factors including the level and quality of coverage and promotion of the Olympic movement.”
Bidders must submit sealed offers to a public notary by April 22. Rogge and Bach will open the envelopes in the presence of the lawyers the next day.
Last year the IOC sold the US TV rights for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada, and 2012 Summer Games, for which Paris, London and New York are the leading contenders of nine bidding cities, to General Electric’s NBC network for $2,201-billion.
Leipzig, Havana, Istanbul, Madrid, Moscow and Rio de Janeiro are the other 2012 candidates in a contest that will be decided in July 2005.
NBC beat off bids from rival ABC and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox TV to retain its stranglehold on US television broadcasts of the Olympic Games.
NBC has broadcast the Summer Games in the US since the 1988 Seoul Olympics and has the rights for the 2004 Athens Summer Games, 2006 Turin Winter Games and 2008 Beijing Summer Games. — Sapa-AFP