Why is there so little Olympics footage in the news? Here’s how the multibillion-dollar video rights industry works

If you’ve watched the nightly news on Channel 7 or the ABC lately, you might think their Olympics coverage is lacking vision of, well, the Olympics.

The ABC’s sports program Offsiders ran a montage of still images as part of its Sunday episode – a seemingly odd choice for a platform best suited to video.

This is because the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the broadcast rights to the games to Channel Nine. Everyone one else must fall into line with strict rules or face harsh financial penalties.

So how does this system work? What are the rules that decide which parts of the games we see on our screens, and where?

From three cameras to thousands

Today the Olympics are broadcast globally, but this hasn’t always been the case.

The first broadcast of the Olympic games was in Berlin during 1936, only available to areas in and around Berlin. It used three cameras, of which only one could provide live coverage, to reach a total of 162,000 viewers.

A single-country broadcast was the norm until Rome 1960, when far more countries had introduced television. For Rome 1960, 21 countries broadcast the games. This was live to 18 European countries and delayed to the United States, Canada and Japan. Interestingly, it was not until Sydney 2000 that the IOC listed the Olympics as having a global reach.

Nowadays, the media rights are awarded by the IOC, which is “the guardian of the Olympic Games and the leader of the Olympic Movement”.

The IOC owns the global media rights to the games. Its Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) serves as the host broadcaster for the games, with the coverage then made available to the media rights holders through a live cloud system.

Pages of rules

While Nine has the “exclusive free and subscription audio-visual rights” to the Olympics, what does this really mean?

Well, there is a 20-page document just for Australian media, setting out all regulations.

The rules document what Australian media can and cannot do with “Olympic material”, which includes the sounds or moving images of any event. This includes:

[…] training venues, sporting action, the Opening Ceremony, the Closing Ceremony and medal ceremonies, mixed zones, interviews or other activities which occur at Olympic Venues, including Olympic Village.

Australian media organisations must not broadcast any Olympic material that has not been broadcast by Nine. If the footage is broadcast by Nine or associated channels, the watermark must remain on the broadcast.

For Australian TV news there are a few more rules, including the 3x3x3 rule. This means a broadcaster cannot show Olympic material for “more than three news programs per day”, and the “duration of Olympic material used in any one news program shall not exceed a total of 3 minutes”. Finally, “news programs in which Olympic material appears must be separated by at least three hours”.

As you can imagine, this severely limits what channels other than Nine can show.

There is also the 6 x 1½ rule, which is an option for 24-hour news channels. This rule states that, “Olympic material is used in no more than six news programs per day and does not exceed a total of one and one half minutes in any one”.

If broadcasters are to use Olympic games coverage, there must be “no advertising, promotion, publicity or other message” appearing at the same time. This includes superimposed or split-screen content.

In addition to sanction for the misuse of Olympic material by non-rights holders, the IOC may suspend a media outlet’s access to any Olympic venue, remove accreditation, or revoke access to Olympic materials. There can also be legal action and claims for damages by the IOC.

For the Rio 2016 games, the Australian Olympic Committee took Telstra to the Federal Court for its “I go to Rio” advertisements, which it argued misled Australians that Telstra was an official Olympic sponsor, rather than its competitor, Optus.

Although the case was dismissed, it gives a good indication of the fine line media and brands walk in using Olympic material.

Funding the games

Above are just a few of the rules listed within the document that Australian non-rights holders must abide by. The strict restrictions on Olympic materials use stems from the limited duration of the event (just a few weeks every four years), necessitating that rights holders maximise their exclusive usage.

Protecting these exclusive rights ensures the rights holders perceive value in their significant financial investment. Safeguarding these media rights is crucial for the IOC, as these rights have been its primary source of revenue for more than three decades.

In 2013–16, broadcast rights made up 74% of IOC revenue, a total of A$6.3 billion.

From 2017–20, broadcast rights declined to 61% of IOC revenue, but the financial amount grew to A$6.9 billion.

The decline in the revenue percentage for broadcast was due to a more than doubling in revenue from the top-tier global sponsorship program.

Big rights, big money

This is Channel Nine’s first Olympics broadcast in more than a decade – a privilege it paid A$305 million to obtain. The most recent deal gives Nine the rights of the Olympics until after Brisbane 2032.

For comparison, NBC in the US paid US$7.75 billion (A$11.8 billion) in 2014 for the rights to broadcast the Olympics until 2032.

Nine would be hoping to have more success than the previous joint partnership with Foxtel for the London 2012 games, which reportedly lost up to A$25 million.

Nine’s Chief Executive, Mike Sneesby, has stated the organisation had “invested significantly to bring unrivalled coverage of the 2024 Games to our valued audiences through Nine’s world-leading journalism”.

Despite early reports the coverage would run at a loss, Sneesby has promised it will be profitable.

Given what’s at stake, the internal issues at the network couldn’t have come at a worse time. Journalists from its newspapers commenced strike action just days before the start of the games, including 20 journalists in Paris.

Is it worth the money?

Despite Nine’s long hiatus as Australia’s go-to Olympic broadcaster, this year’s coverage appears to be a ratings success.

The Sunday broadcast of the games (up until 2:00am Monday AEST), reached 10.7 million Australians across Nine, 9Gem and 9Now.

Despite the opening ceremony being at 3:30am local time, it still had an audience reach of more than 2.1 million. That’s strikingly similar to the 2.12 million people for Seven’s coverage of the Tokyo 2020 games opening ceremony, which had a far smaller timezone difference.

The Paris 2024 Opening ceremony replay (1pm–6pm), saw Nine more than double the audience reach of the live event, with a national total TV reach of 4.616 million. The day one coverage also rated well, as has its coverage on streaming service Stan.

While Nine has experienced great ratings success early on, it can be argued the popularity of swimming and the Australian team’s success could be a contributing factor. It will be fascinating to see whether Australians will continue to watch the coverage at the same level.

Marc C-Scott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.