The BBC has announced today that it will be running an additional 24 HD channels for this summer’s upcoming London 2012 Olympic Games, but these channels will be aired exclusively on paid-for cable and satellite provider’s services.
What this basically means is that the BBC will be providing coverage of every Olympic sport from every venue across the whole Olympic and Paralympic games, all of this which will be accessible to Sky and Virgin Media customers via the red button interactive service and also on BBC iPlayer and other streaming services.
Users on PCs, Laptops, Mobiles, Games Consoles and Tablet Devices will all have access to every HD second of the Olympic Games via on-demand streaming services such as Sky Go.
The channel coverage was announced by the BBC’s Director Roger Mosey on the official BBC website, where he stated:
“We’re delighted to be able to offer this opportunity to cable and satellite providers to extend our online service to millions of TV viewers across the UK.
“BBC One and BBC Three will remain the flagship channels for the Olympics. But, as the London 2012 Olympic Games will be the first truly ‘Digital Games’, we wanted to offer an unprecedented amount of live sporting action to the widest possible audience through these 24 live streams, giving vastly more choice than ever before.”
Sky will add the additional 24 channels to its existing services and will have both HD and SD versions of every channel (which amounts to 48 channels in total if you count 24 SD plus 24 HD) to watch, and all of this is at no extra cost to the subscriber as the BBC and Sky will foot the bill.
Users will see the new channels appear in the sports section of Sky’s Electronic Programme Guide from July 24th, and the events will also be accessible through the Red Button on various BBC channels.
These channels, along with additional coverage on BBC One, Two and Three, will all be included and free to air.
Freeview users however will have to settle for an additional two coverage channels (Channels 301 and 302) available via the EPG and BBC Red Button. This will double the choice on offer from BBC One and BBC Three, meaning that from 7pm you’ll have at least 4 television services plus the full 24-stream service via the website.
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