New Media Seek Presence at Olympics

Tuesday, December 5th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) â€” After being virtually shut out of the Sydney Games, Internet companies are making the case this week to old media and Olympics executives for greater online video and coverage rights.

But their progress may not be much smoother than the jerky performance of Internet video streaming via modem connection.

``This is another step in the process of gradual education rather than anything momentous,'' said Marcus Leaver, chief executive of the European online sports service Rivals.net. ``I think that this will be step and not lurch.''

Officials from the U.S. network NBC and other broadcasters, the International Olympic Committee, Rivals.net and other new media are debating the Olympics' Internet future in a meeting Sunday through Tuesday in this lakeside city.

During this year's Olympics, officials prevented Web sites from offering even short audio reports featuring competition. Sites could not run video and audio highlights â€” though those same feeds were permitted on television and radio.

The IOC allowed online video coverage of events only by NBC, and then only with a 24-hour delay under a closed network that limited distribution to about 100,000 U.S. households.

``We believe that the approach they adopted for the Sydney Olympics, basically to bar the video coverage on the Internet unless it was controlled by NBC, was fatally flawed,'' said Gavin Chittick, chief financial officer the European Internet site, Sports.com.

Chittick, whose company is 20 percent owned by an affiliate of NBC's rival, CBS, said he would be pressing also to get Internet companies ``greater access to future Olympic events, particularly in regard to accreditation of journalists.''

NBC and other traditional broadcasters have a big stake. NBC bought U.S. television rights for Olympic Games through 2008 for $3.5 billion.

And the IOC is keen on maintaining good relations with broadcasters, who accounted for 51 percent of all revenue from the Sydney Games, $1.33 billion of the overall $2.6 billion.

NBC wants to block other online media from providing video to customers in the United States, which given the borderless nature of the Internet could mean customers anywhere.

``As far as the United States goes, we would like to keep our video rights over the Internet,'' said NBC spokesman Mike McCarley.

As for granting new media accreditation to enter the Olympic grounds to interview athletes and provide other coverage, that's ``a question for the IOC,'' McCarley said.

``At this point, we believe that the Internet as an international media is just not there,'' said Franklin Servan-Schreiber, director of new media for the International Olympic Committee.

``It is clear that the IOC will not do anything that will hurt the broadcasters,'' said Servan-Schreiber, the Olympic spokesman. ``The Internet rights for the next 10 years are not going to be comparable to broadcast, which finances the Olympic Games.''

Servan-Schreiber has said that Olympic organizers would likely change some Internet policies in time for 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, though he has been vague.

A lot will depend on the advances in technology. Currently, restricting streaming video to specific geographic zones is nearly impossible. But programming advances could easily change that in time for Athens.

During the Sydney Games, NBC piped the delayed video down controlled fiber-optic cables to only 100,000 homes.

By contrast, 105 million people watched NBC's TV coverage, and 5.6 million individuals visited NBCOlympics.com, the most popular Olympic Web site globally.

During the two weeks of the Sydney Games, a company hired by the IOC searched 20,000 Web sites, and resolved 500 cases of unauthorized use of video.

In some cases, new media outlets of traditional broadcasters had streamed video for which they had terrestrial but not Internet rights.

And in some cases, companies had grabbed video in violation of copyright. Overall, though, unauthorized use was limited and quickly disappeared after warnings.

Too many questions remain, though, for the complex issues to be resolved soon.

For one, copyright issues could be complicated by the refinement of programs like Napster that make it nearly impossible to halt the swapping of bootleg digital content â€” like Olympics video.

Noted Servan-Schreiber: ``Anyone who tells you where this is going in 12 months is a fool.''

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On the Net:

http://www.iocnewmedia.com/

http://nbcolympics.com/

http://www.olympics.com/eng/

http://www.sports.com/en/

http://www.rivals.net/

http://www.copyrightcontrol.com