Glenda Korporaal | April 03, 2008
AUSTRALIAN media organisations will seek a meeting with the Australian Olympic Committee for clarification on how to use new guidelines allowing short video clips of the Beijing Olympics on their websites.
The moves follow this week's announcement by the International Olympic Committee of a groundbreaking agreement with the Seven Network that overturns the previous ban on non-rights holder media organisations broadcasting moving images of the Games on their websites.
The Seven Network paid $75million for the television, radio, online and telephony rights to cover the 2006 Winter Olympics and this year's Beijing Games. It has since sold some of its official rights to SBS television, Yahoo!7, Macquarie Radio Network and Telstra.
But this week's agreement allows the internet sites of rival media companies to have access to moving images on a similar basis as non-rights holder TV networks such as Nine and Ten.
Executives from News Limited (publisher of The Australian) and Fairfax Media yesterday welcomed the guidelines but said they needed more guidance on the practical application to theinternet.
"News is going to seek a meeting with the AOC to go through the guidelines to see if what we are planning to do online falls within the bounds of these guidelines or if there may be problems," News Limited editorial operations director Campbell Reid said yesterday.
"The IOC has made a good attempt at acknowledging the role that the media plays and the connection between great sports and the public. But it is clear from the rules that they have been struggling, as many of us are, to try to get the internet to fit into broadcasting or traditional media rules," Reid said.
Mike van Niekerk, online editor-in-chief of Fairfax Media, described this week's announcement as significant.
"It is fairly progressive and certainly shows the case for all sporting organisations," he said.
"There are still some reservations about some of the issues around branding and presentation, but the spirit of this decision is a very good one."
But he said Fairfax Media would also be seeking guidelines from the AOC on some of the caveats in the announcement.
The agreement with Seven has set a new benchmark for other international sporting organisations in terms of what moving images non-rights holder media organisations can broadcast on their websites.
The IOC says bona fide news organisations such as News or Fairfax can run moving images of this year's Olympic sport or other official events such as the opening and closing ceremonies.
But this will be subject to strict conditions including a maximum of three minutes of moving images a day, with a maximum coverage of no more than 30 seconds for any particular event. Non-rights holder media organisations will have to remove the moving images from their websites after 24 hours. They will also have to block moving images so they cannot be seen outside Australia.