Syracuse

Broadcast coverage allows people all over the world to experience the magic of the Olympic Games. As per Rule 48 of the Olympic Charter, the IOC is to take “all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games.”

Already at the first modern Olympic Games, in Athens in 1896, which were born in a context characterised by the beginning of the development of a modern system of mass communication, we see that the international press followed news linked to the Olympic Games, reporting on the running of the competitions and the results of the events by means of articles illustrated with etchings, and later photographs. At the same time, short cinematographic sequences (newsreels) were also shown in cinemas. As early as 1912, the events of the Olympic Games in Stockholm benefited from “excellent” coverage and could be viewed only a few days after being recorded.

Radio coverage was first introduced during the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924. However, at this time, organisers feared that radio would have a negative impact on the sale of entry tickets, which proved unfounded. Radio broadcasting of the Games developed quickly, resulting in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin being covered in 28 languages in 2,500 broadcasts.

It was also at the Games of Berlin 1936 that the first television coverage through Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) took place. The broadcasts could be seen in specially equipped rooms, allowing more than 162,000 people in all to follow the competitions outside the stadium. At the 1948 Olympic Games in London, television came into people’s living rooms, allowing 500,000 people to follow the competitions up to 200km away from the actual event. Television became even more important from Rome 1960, when the first live international television transmission of the Games was made.

Over the years, numerous other improvements appeared, such as the arrival of colour TV in the 1960s; the creation of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) in 2001 to film all the competitions at the Olympic Games; live broadcasting on the internet in 2004 for the Athens Games; the improvement of image definition, cumulating in High Definition in 2008; and the live 3D broadcast for the 2012 London Games. Tokyo 2020 was the first edition of the Olympic Games to be fully produced natively in Ultra High Definition (UHD) High Dynamic Range (HDR), and audiences were introduced to never-seen before camera angles, 360-degree replays, multi-camera live Virtual Reality (VR) coverage and more analytical data processed by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

For Tokyo 2020, OBS produced approximately 9,500 hours of content in just over two weeks, including approximately 3,800-4,000 hours of live sports and ceremony coverage, amounting to 30 per cent more content than was produced for the Olympic Games Rio 2016. The Rights-Holding Broadcasters now have a holistic and comprehensive broadcasting approach, spreading the event to billions of people through classic TV channels, smart TV apps, websites, mobile phone/tablet apps and social media....

Over 25,000 journalists are usually on-site to cover the Olympic Games, but for Tokyo, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, only 19,664 accreditations were delivered: 7,906 for Rights-Holding Broadcasters, 7,571 for host broadcasters and 4,187 for written and photographic press, coming from 1,244 press organisations and 127 National Olympic Committees.

The International Broadcast Centre, providing technical and administrative facilities for both OBS and the Rights-Holding Broadcasters, and the Main Press Centre, providing facilities for the world’s press and photographers, are the two main facilities used during the Games to ensure that every moment of the action can be seen around the globe.

To learn more about the evolution of the media coverage of the Olympic Games, we recommend starting your research with the selection of publications and links on this page.

Our highlights are the publications “Mobile Olympic media across three continents: replacing or enhancing Olympic television?” by Andrew Billings, Natalie Brown-Devil, Kenon Brown and Michael Devlin, “Olympic 2.0: transforming sports for a digital world” by Andy Miah and “The broadcast revolution” by the Olympic Review.

Of course, this page contains just a selection of the resources available on this wide-ranging topic, so be sure to check out the links at the bottom of the page for the full list of resources.

Also, don’t miss our Zoom-In page about Olympic Marketing, which provides a global overview of how the IOC has developed marketing-related initiatives such as broadcast partnerships, sponsorship programmes, ticketing and licensing.