The Japan Consortium of broadcasters has deepened its relationship with the International Olympic Committee’s digital platform, Olympic Channel, as the country today (Tuesday) marked the two-year countdown to Tokyo’s staging of the summer Olympic Games.
The Olympic Channel and the Japan Consortium, which includes public-service broadcaster NHK and the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association (JBA), have debuted Olympic Channel-branded digital platforms across multiple outlets in an effort to further engage local audiences with the Olympic Movement all year round.
Starting today, Olympic Channel digital portals will be available on olympicchannel.com as well as on the digital platforms for NHK, NTV, TV Asahi, TBS, TV Tokyo, Fuji TV and the JBA’s Olympics website gorin.jp.
The newly launched digital platforms will offer fans Olympic-themed programming from around the world in Japanese, with an emphasis on their favourite Japanese athletes, teams and sports under the Olympic Channel brand.
In addition to locally-produced features, video content will include Olympic-themed original series and documentaries produced by filmmakers from around the world commissioned by the Olympic Channel.
Today’s agreement comes after the Olympic Channel and the Japan Consortium signed a strategic distribution partnership in March that includes linear programming and branded Olympic Channel hours across the networks within the Consortium.
In June 2014, the Japan Consortium extended its Olympic Games rights deal through to the 2024 summer edition of the multi-sport event. Under the deal with the IOC, the consortium acquired rights in Japan for the 2018 winter Games in Pyeongchang, Korea and the 2020 summer Olympics in the Japanese capital, as well as the rights for the 2022 and 2024 Olympic Games, which will be held in Beijing and Paris, respectively.