Eurosport Olympics deal threatens RTE coverage
RTE is facing the prospect of losing some or all of its coverage of the Olympics from 2018 after Eurosport and parent company Discovery secured a €1.3bn (£920m) rights deal.
Eurosport has committed to broadcasting only 200 hours of summer Olympics and 100 hours of winter Games on free-to-air television and says in many territories it will sub-license these back to a terrestrial broadcaster.
A Eurosport statement read: “Discovery will sub-license a portion of the rights in many markets across Europe”.
The agreement starts with the Winter Olympics in South Korea in 2018 and the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. It also covers the 2022 and 2024 events for which no host city has been selected.
RTÉ holds exclusive Irish rights to the Rio 2016 Olympics across all platforms.
Announcing the new TV deal, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said: “This is a significant agreement for Discovery and the IOC, and we are excited to have Eurosport, the pan-European home of Olympic sports, as a partner.
“This agreement ensures comprehensive coverage of the Olympic Games across Europe, including the guarantee to provide extensive free-to-air television coverage in all territories.
“The revenue generated from this long-term partnership will be redistributed by the IOC across the Olympic movement to support the development of sport around the world.”
RTÉ admitted it was disappointed in a statement this afternoon, but stressed that it was "too early to say definitively that RTÉ won’t broadcast the Olympics in 2020 and 2024."
"It should be noted that rights to Rio 2016 were bought by RTÉ through a third party agency when the EBU failed in its bid for those games and Discovery Channel have said today that they will ‘sub-license a portion of the rights in many markets across Europe’."
