Television broadcast rights are a major source of income for the Olympic movement, accounting for more than half of Olympic marketing revenues.

China Daily reporter Li Jing interviewed Timo Lumme, managing director of Television & Marketing Services of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), who spoke extensively about broadcast rights arrangements and the opportunities offered to new media by the Beijing Olympics. The following are excerpts.

We know that broadcast rights are a prime revenue source of the Olympic movement. Would you please introduce the process of the broadcast rights arrangements for the Beijing 2008 Olympics?

Broadcast rights started to become a source of revenue for the Olympic movement at the Rome Games in 1960. And since then, it has become the most important single revenue source for the Olympic movement. Broadcast rights now account for 53 per cent of overall Olympic movement revenue in a four-year cycle.

Television is the way that most people can experience the Olympics. During the Beijing Olympics, about 8 million people will have the chance to come and see the Games themselves, but billions of people around the world will not have the opportunity and will therefore watch television. As to the 2008 Olympic Games, IOC has already concluded almost all of the broadcast rights arrangements and there are broadcast licensees in place for most territories.

How many broadcasting unions and corporations have signed agreements with IOC to broadcast the 2008 Olympic Games?

We have signed a total of 17 agreements with bodies such as the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), as well as with TV stations such as the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) of the United States and Channel 7 in Australia, and with organizations such as Korean Poll and Japan Consortium. It is estimated that between 300 and 350 television stations in 220 countries will broadcast the Beijing Olympics.

What about the revenue?

The combined television revenue for the Torino and Beijing Olympic Games will be about US$2.54 billion. The figure for the 2001-04 cycle was about US$2.23 billion.

How does IOC distribute the revenue?

It is estimated that the television revenue from the Beijing Games will be more than US$1.7 billion. Forty-nine per cent of television revenue will be allocated to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, and the remaining 51 per cent will go to other Olympic bodies, including national Olympic committees, international sport federations, and a small proportion to IOC.

Who has paid the most?

NBC paid the highest amount for the broadcast rights, followed by the EBU, the Japan Consortium and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In the future, we expect China to pay a larger share in the ABU for Olympic broadcasts. China is a member of the union. The ABU's agreement with the IOC to broadcast the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is worth US$17.5 million.

How is IOC going to take advantage of opportunities from new media?

New media rights are another major area and we are now starting to work on it. The new media includes broadband Internet and mobile phones.

How about the arrangements regarding new media rights for the Beijing Olympics?

In Athens we had zero media downloads, in Turin we had 32 million media downloads and we expect this could be as much as 10 times that for Beijing, because Internet penetration is increasing, more people use broadband Internet, and there are increased sales of 2.5 G and 3G mobile phones which are able to download clips.

We will start discussions about new media rights first with broadcasting unions and companies that have signed contracts with us, and then will decide whether we can reach an agreement with them or go to other parties.

How does IOC balance the interest of different Olympic broadcasters with regard to the completion schedule?

Generally speaking, in the long run, there is a natural balance since the Olympics is held in different parts of the world. But the problem is that when you have the Games in a particular time zone, there are always difficulties for other parts of the world. This is a difficult balancing act, because you want to make sure that as many as people as possible can see the events, but you also have to make sure that the health of the athletes is not compromised. So we need dialogue with all broadcasters.

                                                     (China Daily 07/21/2006 page5)