UK: BBC acquires, from Discovery, the free-TV broadcasting rights for the 2022 and 2024 Olympics

The British public broadcaster BBC has acquired the exclusive broadcasting rights, for free-TV in the UK, to the Olympic Winter Games in 2022 (in Beijing, China) and the 2024 Summer Games (host country not yet assigned) via sublicense from the American audiovisual group Discovery Communications, the two companies announced on 02/02/2016.

Discovery Communications, owner of Eurosport pay channels, acquired the exclusive broadcasting rights, in Europe, from the IOC for the Olympic Games for the 2018-2024 period for €1.3bn on 29/06/2015. These rights include broadcast television (free and pay), Internet, mobile devices and radio in 50 countries and territories in the European continent. In France and the UK, the agreement relates only to the Winter Olympics in 2022 and the Summer Olympics in 2024, as the rights for the 2018 (PyeongChang, South Korea) and 2020 (Tokyo, Japan) editions had already been allocated these two countries (to the BBC in the UK; in France, to France Télévisions, and to Canal+ in sublicense only for 2020).

The sub-licensing agreement with the BBC is the first for…