Discovery

As the London 2012 Olympics concluded, the overwhelming emotion for the vast army of BBC executives, consumed for years by a project on the grandest of scales, was relief at a job well done.

The one-off documentary will explore the first day of one of the bloodiest battles in human history, telling the story of five ordinary men through dramatic recreations, written accounts, expert interviews and archive footage.

Sir Tony Robinson (Time Team, Blackadder) will visit key towns, buildings, places and battlegrounds to meet the families of people who were caught up in epic conflict.

Barbara Slater, the Director of BBC Sport, likes to bang the drum for digital. Even so, last year she found the time to blog on the corporation’s website just six times.

Four of those six posts apologetically explained why the BBC had been forced to cede flagship rights and was likely to make further cuts in the future.

The posts unpicked why the BBC, after six decades, had to surrender Open golf and also give up on a, perhaps vainglorious, bid to roll back the years by making the Beeb the exclusive home of Formula 1.

Are we on the threshold of another television revolution similar to the introduction of colour or multichannel? There is a lot of excitement around virtual reality in show business and media circles. But can broadcasters successfully deploy VR – or will it turn out to be as ephemeral as the recent commotion over 3DTV?

The deal builds on a 30-year partnership between the BBC and Discovery and means that the Corporation will sublicense exclusive free-to-air audio-visual rights to the 2022 and 2024 Olympic Games from Discovery.

The BBC will also license non-exclusive radio rights to the 2022 and 2024 Games.

In return, Discovery will sublicense exclusive pay-TV rights in the UK to the 2018 and 2020 Games.

Discovery Communications has revealed a number of appointments at Eurosport who will support the company’s Olympic Games Strategy.

In June it was announced that Discovery had been awarded the European TV and multiplatform broadcast rights to the 2018-2024 Olympic Games.

The coverage will be overseen by an Olympic Games leadership organisation team. Three of the five team members were announced this week, with Jean-Thierry Augustin leading Commercialisation, David Schafer heading up Operations and Planning and Géraldine Filiol directing Olympic Relations and Coordination.

Eurosport has announced that its new brand identity will be revealed on-air tomorrow, with the strapline "Fuel Your Passion" to be supported by a #sharemypassion social media campaign.

The campaign "encourages fans to share stories about the extraordinary lengths they go to in order to demonstrate their love for their athlete, team or sport". Eurosport hopes it will encourage viewers to engage with the brand and with sports they love, at any time, on any device, at an exciting time for the company.

Who will own the future – the broadcasters, the content owners or the global tech behemoths, such as Google, Facebook and Apple? The question is not new, but it is becoming ever more pressing for people in television.

James Purnell, the BBC’s Director, Strategy and Digital, led this comprehensive opening debate, “Happy Valley or House of Cards? Television in 2020”.

It will include stories about the volunteers and athletes, news about the games and background information. And it will be delivered online via Over The Top (OTT) services. 

The IOC President, Thomas Bach, told German media magazine Horizont that he believes in the importance of having appealing content on digital platforms.