Broadcasters

Broadcast coverage is the principal means for people around the world to experience the magic of the Olympic Games.

The IOC is the owner of the global broadcast rights for the Olympic Games – including broadcasts on television, radio, mobile and internet platforms – and is responsible for allocating Olympic broadcast rights to media companies throughout the world through the negotiation of rights agreements.

Broadcast of the Olympic Games has been the principal driver of the:

• funding of the Olympic Movement and the Olympic Games
• growth of the global popularity
• global representation and promotion of the Olympic Games and the Olympic values

The IOC’s broadcast policy

The IOC’s broadcast policy is fundamentally based on the Olympic Charter, which is the codification of the Fundamental Principles, Rules and Bye-laws adopted by the IOC.

The Charter states:
"The IOC takes 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."

IOC Marketing: Media Guide London 2012

Olympic Broadcasting Services

OBS is responsible for providing the international television and radio signals from the Games to all rights-holding broadcasters around the world.

The IOC established Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) in 2001 to serve as the permanent host broadcaster for the Olympic Games, eliminating the need to continually rebuild the broadcast operation for each edition of the Games.

OBS ensures that the high standards of Olympic broadcasting are consistently maintained from one edition fo the Games to the next.

Learn more about OBS

“LIVE! Broadcasting the Olympic Games” - Interactive documentary

Make a digital journey through the fabulous history of Olympic broadcasting!

Through a personal, vertical, explosive read, featuring anecdotes, documents and archives, the Olympic Museum’s new interactive documentary takes you from one surprise to the next, in the great whirlwind of Olympic Games broadcasting.

You will see how, since they entered the heart of the competitions, radio, then television, and finally the Internet have constantly beaten their own technological records.
In a few minutes, you will have “seen” the Olympic Games with the ears and eyes of the 1900s audience, 1920s, 1930s, as well as the 1940s, 1960s and 1970s, 1980s and finally of the today’s audience - or even tomorrow’s audience…

Scroll from top to bottom, and from left to right, and enter the history and anecdotes of broadcasting the Olympic Games, the biggest sporting and cultural event in the world.

With “LIVE! Broadcasting the Games”, The Olympic Museum is continuing its interactive programming for the Internet, the second documentary based on the exhibition

“LIVE! The Olympic Games: Behind the Screen”.
(See the exhibition in Lausanne from 19.02.15 to 26.01.16.)