Discovery CTO John Honeycutt said that the broadcaster "will be studying the emerging technologies of virtual reality and artificial reality" as it heads toward its coverage of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. He said, "We were in Rio watching and observing and seeing who’s doing what. We see opportunities because we’re starting a fresh and not having to drag technologies from the past. You have to avoid playing technology bingo, but who thought this time last year we’d be talking about Snapchat" (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 9/9).
WEEKLY SNAP: Snapchat is to get a weekly football "TV Show" made by digital football network Copa90 and sports site Bleacher Report. Copa90 Head James Kirkham said that the new weekly show on Snapchat Discover will look “nothing like telly” instead it has been developed to "fit with the ethos and style of Snapchat and its youthful users." Kirkham: "We want to give this [Snapchat] generation of football fans a show that resonates with them and contemporary viewing habits." The new show, which launches in the U.K. on Saturday on Bleacher Report’s Snapchat Discover platform, "will air once a week throughout the football season" (London GUARDIAN, 9/9).
MEDIA BRIEFS ...
Arqiva has "extended its sports distribution contract with Intelsat to distribute premium sports content to viewers in the Americas. Under a multi-year agreement, Arqiva is using services on Intelsat 34 and Intelsat 20 to "broadcast content to millions of sports fans located in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific regions" (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 9/11).
Canal+ signed a five-year partnership with the Ivory Coast football league “to broadcast Ivorian Ligue 1 matches.” Canal+ will broadcast the “best matches of each week on its sports channels.” The matches will be “shown in the 23 African countries that Canal+ operates in.” The partnership also involves Canal+ “helping develop the audiovisual production of the matches” (CB NEWS, 9/11).
