US media and entertainment company Discovery Communications has signed its latest sublicensing deal for Olympic Games rights in Europe through an agreement with Austrian public-service broadcaster ORF.
Under the agreement, ORF will exclusively sublicense from Discovery free-to-air audio visual rights for its channels to the 2018 winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea and 2020 summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. The sublicense package will include selected digital rights to the content ORF broadcasts on its linear television channels.
Discovery’s international sports broadcaster Eurosport will hold pay rights to air all Olympic Games action on its German-language channels available in Austria, as well as across all digital, OTT and mobile platforms.
The news follows Discovery’s partnership with the International Olympic Committee in June 2015 through which it secured exclusive multimedia rights across 50 countries and territories in Europe for the 2018-2024 Olympic Games cycle.
Discovery has now concluded seven Olympic Games sublicensing agreements, following partnership deals with national broadcasters in Croatia (HRT), the Czech Republic (Česká Televize), Finland (YLE), Ireland (RTÉ), the Netherlands (NOS) and UK (BBC).