KUWAIT CITY - The 29th Olympic Games at Beijing will be telecast live on KTV3 and Kuwait Sports Plus channels throughout the Games, said Kuwait TV's Satellite Technical Officer Abdul Majid, speaking to the Arab Times Tuesday. "We will receive the signal for the Olympic Games from 3 am till 10 pm every day starting from the opening ceremony; however, the sports department is yet to finalize the program schedules," Majid added. Meanwhile, cable TV service provider, Showtime, told the Arab Times that the Olympic Games will be telecast in Kuwait on most Free To Air (FTA) channels such as Dubai Sport and Bahrain Sport. An UAE based newspaper had earlier reported that Dubai Sport and Abu Dhabi Sport, both FTA channels, will be telecasting Beijing Olympics from the opening ceremony on Friday to the closing ceremony on Aug 24.
"We will have full coverage of the Olympics. Our channel is free and not encrypted. We are keen to provide an excellent service to all our viewers," Rashid Amiri, manager of Dubai Sports Channel, was quoted as saying. "We will have live coverage every day for most part of the games. The opening ceremony on Friday will be broadcast from GMT 1200 (3 pm Kuwait Time) Friday, he added. From Saturday the Olympic coverage on the channel will be from 7 am to 8 pm, with a midnight newscast, in Kuwait. According to an official online press release by International Olympic Committee (IOC) the committee has launched an online channel to broadcast the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in 77 territories across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, including Kuwait.
Further the statement said: "From 6 August 2008, the IOC will broadcast a selection of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games clips as Video On Demand (VOD). The IOC's Channel will be available on YouTubeTM, geo-blocked within each territory, at www.youtube.com/beijing2008.
"The IOC's channel will be accessible in territories where digital VOD rights have not been sold or have been acquired on a non-exclusive basis.
"Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the IOC, will produce regularly updated Olympic content. The package will include highlights, news and daily clips of the competitions, available throughout the 17-day period of the Games.
"After online broadcast coverage was made available in a handful of territories for Athens 2004, and in 23 territories for Turin, Beijing 2008 marks the first time that digital media coverage will be freely available across the world provided by the rights-holding broadcasters and/or directly via the IOC's Channel."
IOC Director of Television and Marketing Services, Timo Lumme said in the press release: "The IOC's priority is to ensure that as many people as possible get to experience the magic of the Olympic Games and the inspirational sporting achievements of the Olympic athletes. For the first time in Olympic history we will have complete global online coverage, and the IOC will have its own broadcast Channel and content production facilities. The IOC's Channel will make fantastic Olympic footage available where young generations of sports fans are already going for online entertainment, and will complement the footage offered in these territories by our broadcast partners across all media platforms. "By offering an abundance of freely available content across media platforms around the world, including over the internet, the IOC believes it is limiting the risk of piracy infringements."
By Valiya S. Sajjad
© Arab Times 2008
