last100 » IOC http://www.last100.com Tracking the digital lifestyle Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:24:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc en hourly 1 YouTube gets dedicated Olympic channel, but it won’t be available in the U.S. http://www.last100.com/2008/08/04/youtube-gets-dedicated-olympic-channel-but-it-wont-be-available-in-the-us/ http://www.last100.com/2008/08/04/youtube-gets-dedicated-olympic-channel-but-it-wont-be-available-in-the-us/#comments Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:09:57 +0000 Daniel Langendorf http://www.last100.com/?p=2447 The 2008 Olympic Games will be broadcast online to more than 70 countries on a dedicated YouTube channel, but the United States is not included.

NBC holds the video-on-demand rights in the U.S., but these have not been sold on an exclusive basis in other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Vietnam, Iraq, and India (see the complete International Olympic Committee list here).

The IOC will stream about three hours a day of exclusive content — mostly summaries and highlights — from Olympic Broadcasting Services. YouTube will sell ads, but only to Olympic sponsors. The channel will be available on Wednesday.

YouTube will use geo-blocking to prevent access to the channel in countries where the video-on-demand rights have been sold, like in the U.S. Geo-blocking is based on a user’s IP address.

The geo-blocking in the U.S. shouldn’t be that big of a deal, unless you’re one who wants to see everything broadcast night and day or you’re surfing videos at YouTube and want to catch up on the Olympic action without leaving the site.

NBC will show more than 2,000 hours of live content at NBCOlympics.com. That’s more than enough content to keep any Olympic fan happy — and in need of sleep.

See also: Roundup: The most digital of all Olympic games is well underway and, from ReadWriteWeb, Mainstream Web Watch: The Olympics & Online Video

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