The Czech public broadcaster Ceske Televize (CT) has signed an agreement with Discovery Communications for the rights to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea and Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, two years later.
Under the terms of the deal, coverage of both will be available to viewers on CT’s thematic channel CT Sport and Eurosport, which is owned by Discovery.
CT will sub-licence from Discovery FTA audiovisual rights for one channel for both Games. The public broadcaster’s sublicensing package includes digital rights to the content it broadcasts on its linear TV channel. Eurosport also has rights to air all of the Olympic Games on pay-TV and through its digital platforms.
In addition, CT has agreed to promote live events shown by Eurosport and not itself in order to ensure viewers can watch the Games in their entirety.
This is Discovery’s fourth Olympics sub-licensing deal, following on from agreements with the BBC (UK), NOS (Netherlands) and YLE (Finland).
As previously reported in Broadband TV News, Discovery last year acquired the exclusive rights for the four Olympic Games between 2018-2024, valued at €1.3 billion, across all platforms, including FTA TV, subscription/pay-TV, internet and mobile phones, in all languages across 50 countries in Europe except Russia.
