British pay TV operator BSkyB will screen live coverage of the London Olympics this summer after the BBC agreed on Tuesday to make its online feeds available to cable and satellite broadcasters in Britain. The publicly funded BBC has the rights to the Games and will offer live footage of every Olympic sport for the first time - providing up to 24 simultaneous feeds and allowing viewers to switch between table tennis and hockey.
The BBC will distribute the bulk of these additional channels via its website but they will now also be shown on television in Sky's 10 million subscription households. Cable operator Virgin Media also said more than 500,000 of its subscribers who have a TiVo set-top box would be able to see the Olympic action. It was looking at ways of extending the service to all its 3.7 million customers.
The news will be a boost to television manufacturers for whom major events like the Olympics and the Euro 2012 soccer tournament are a great platform to showcase new products. The Games, which run from July 27-August 12, will also be closely watched by media groups to see how viewing divides between TV, home computers, tablets and other mobile devices.
"The aim is that you'd be able to pick from watching BBC Olympics 1 right through to BBC Olympics 24 with full programme guides and the ability to record your favourite sports," said Roger Mosey, BBC director of London 2012. "Many of those discussions are still continuing, but the BBC, Sky and Freesat have announced today that they've come to an agreement that will deliver the 24 channels to all Sky homes," he added on his blog.
"Sky will also pick up the costs of satellite distribution, irrespective of whether other platforms join in - though we hope and believe there'll be more announcements soon," he added. BSkyB is not paying for the rights and all of the coverage and commentary will come from the BBC. BSkyB will incur some costs as it upgrades its systems to accommodate the additional channels - 48 in total when high definition is taken into account.
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