BPN 1202 Dutch cross media project OS success

The Olympic Games are over and it is stats time again. And I was immediately served at the iMMovator Cross Media Summer Café in Hilversum yesterday afternoon. The chief innovation of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting, Mr Roelant Stekelenburg, came to tell about the greatest cross media project of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting so far. The Olympic Games came to the Dutch audience by television, internet, radio and mobile.

Olympic Games 2008 on Internet with 13 channels
- 2,7 million unique visitors
- 60 million page views
- 20 million live streams
- 7,4 million Video on Demand clips
- Average time watched: between15 and 20 minutes.

Top day 21 August 2008 (the day the Dutch waterpolo team won gold)
- 518.000 unique visitors
- 5,4 million pageviews
- 2 million live streams
- 100.000 concurrent streams
- Top traffic 76 Gb/sec
- 650.000 VoD clips

Olympic Games 2008 on mobile with 13 channels
- 30.000 downloads
- 23.000 unique visitors
- 135.000 visits
- 1 million pageviews
- Teletex most popular
- 8500 video users
- 21.000 live video streams
- 9200 VoD clips
- 5600 Radio Olympia.

The Netherlands Public Broadcasting also offered High Definition of 20Mbps on Internet. The channel could handle 40 concurrent users. There was also a High Resolution channel of 1,5Mbps, which was popular for those who found the HD and high resolution channels.

All together the Netherlands Public Broadcasting picked up only 300.000 euro in revenues from advertising on the Internet.

Overlooking the statistics it is clear that this year the limits were reached with 100.000 concurrent users. It also brought up the question about who will be paying the bill for broadband traffic in the future. Netherlands Public Broadcasting wants to start up a discussion with ISPs on this subject.

The opening and closing ceremonies on Dutch television attracted 2 million viewers for each occasion. According to the Netherlands Public Broadcasting, 86 per cent of the Dutch have watched the Olympic Games at one time in the 2,5 weeks of the games.

Blog Posting Number: 1202

Tags: broadcast, internet, mobile, broadband

BPN 1183 You can’t miss the Olympic Games

It is 08-08-08; today the Olympic Games start. 1388 days ago I was in Beijing and saw the first stadiums for the Olympic Games arise as well as the many construction works near the airport. Now the three week circus starts and I am glad I am not in Beijing, given all the crowds. Yet, I would love to see whether the waitresses of one of the restaurants I visited has made it to welcome the guests in English.

However I will have to watch the Games from Almere (The Netherlands). But I have a choice. Of course I can watch the games on television. Just a week ago I upgraded my UPC subscription to digital television. I installed it and so far I am impressed by some broadcasts and all the extra information. Yet I can imagine why people stick to analogue. So far I have not taken a HD package.

But outside the regular broadcasts, the NOS, the Dutch public broadcast organisation will offer broadcasts through 13 channels. The official channel Nederland 1 will offer all the highlights of a day. On the website the user determines himself which of the 28 Olympic sports he/she will look at on one of the 12 channels. There will also be summaries, highlights, statistics scores and on-demand content 24/7. Also special feeds and special widgets will be transmitted to record the performances of the Dutch sports people.

Central to the site and the channels is an electronic program guide (EPG). The EPG can be personalised according to the user’s preferences. From the schedule the user can click through to the live video channel.

However the user does not have to stay at home. Through NOS Mobile the user can also pick up the 13 channels. As the games in Beijing are between 3:00 AM and 4:00 PM, people can watch the games with a proper UMTS mobile telephone or a wifi connection at night, during the morning rush hour, during work or holiday. The content is free; the mobile telephone connection has to be paid for.

The NOS has acquired all the rights needed to broadcast the Olympic Games, ranging from television to radio, internet to mobile, live and on-demand.

It is remarkable that the media (television, newspapers and internet) are involving social networks. The NOS has feeds and widgets for Twitter and the Dutch social network Hyves. The daily De Telegraaf has created a Hyve with Hyves as a central place for news and background stories of the Olympic Games. De Telegraaf will blog from the press centre as well from the Holland Heineken House (see movie).



One thing is sure: if you do not want to miss anything of the Olympic Games, you need television, a computer and a mobile.

Blog Posting Number 1183

Tags: television, internet, mobile,
television, mobile

Virtual Olympic Congress

The International Olympic Congress, which organises the Olympic Games, launched public consultations on www.olympic.org. This is the first time in the history of Olympic Congresses that the general public can submit their views on the topics under consideration. An analysis of these contributions will be conducted, and the results published by the IOC in 2009.

The information gathered through the virtual Congress will form the basis of discussions at the 13th Olympic Congress held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in October 2009. Members of the public can submit their contributions via the following link: www.2009congress.olympic.org. More information on the submission guidelines can also be found at this address. The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2008.

The public consultation process is designed to take the pulse of the general public on the following themes:

Theme 1: The athletes
* Relationship between the athletes, the clubs, federations and the NOCs
* Health protection in training and competition
* The social and professional life of athletes during and after elite competition

Theme 2: The Olympic Games
* How to keep the Games as a premier event
* The Olympic values
* Universality and developing countries

Theme 3: The structure of the Olympic Movement
* The autonomy of the Olympic Movement
* Good governance and ethics
* The relationships between the Olympic Movement and its stakeholders

Theme 4: Olympism and Youth
* Moving towards an active society
* Is competitive sport still appealing?
* Youth sports events

Theme 5: The digital revolution
* A new management of sports rights
* How to increase the size of the sports audience
* Communication with stakeholders in the digital age

It is interesting to see that such an elite body, of which members have been accused of accepting bribes and corruption, opens up for suggestions and criticisms. Of course, the IOC has become a little bit more democratic by accepting sports persons in the council, but it does not have the image of a democratically working organisation with open procedures and records. Did the IOC make known the people and their vote for favouring the Olympic Games to China?

Of course it is easy to be sceptical about this move. Yet how serious is this action. How many e-mails do the governors expect? Why start this process one and a half year before the congress and not after the Olympic Games in China?

Is this repressive tolerance? Of course the governors of the IOC always like to speak about the Olympic family, but this always sounds like the colonial family: we the governors and the sports people; the visitors and television viewers belong to the cold branch of the family. It looks like the IOC has discovered a new breed in their taxonomy. After the governors, the sports officials, athletes, members of the press, there are now members of the public.

Is the use of modern media as e-mail and sites appropriate in opening up a closed organisation like the IOC? In this case, people who like to forward opinions, remarks and criticism can use e-mail and sites, basically a one way process. At best you can expect a thank-you note or an extensive press release after the congress in October 2009. It is not a forum or a blog, where you can compare notes and start discussions.

Yet it must be said that the IOC has put many debatable questions on the table. Looking at the digital issues, for example, the question of managing sports rights is posed. Remember the last winter- and summer games? Sports people were not allowed to have a blog and television companies were restricted in their internet rights. There are still many hard nuts to crack.

It will be interesting to see how successful this experiment will be. But whether it is was a courageous step will become clear from the congress results in October 2009. It should be come clear then, whether people from all over the world have reacted to this call and whether the governors have been sensitive to the opinions, remarks and criticisms.

Blog Posting Number: 979

Tags: sports, Olympic Games