Rumors: Eesti Meedia will take over Olympics broadcasts
There has been speculation that TV channel Kanal 2, owned by Eesti Meedia, would buy the rights to broadcast the next Summer and Winter Olympics. CEO Sven Nuutmann declined to confirm, saying that nothing could be said with certainty yet.
“I sound like a broken record, but right now I can’t comment anything, we don’t want to say anything yet,” Nuutmann said in answer to ERR’s question if Eesti Meedia had reached an agreement about broadcasting the next Olympic games.
Nothing was certain at this point, Nuutmann added.
Speculations picked up after it became clear on Monday that Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR) would not air the next Olympic games, as Discovery Communications, who own Eurosport and the broadcasting rights to the events, demanded €800,000 for the regarding license, which is four times more than the previous time.
ERR’s sports chief Ivo Saarna said that they had made three offers, but not got any feedback from Discovery Communications anymore. The public broadcaster’s budget did not allow them to make a higher offer.
Estonian Public Broadcasting is not the only broadcaster affected by Discovery’s massive price hike. While even American broadcaster NBC is thinking about whether or not buying the license still makes sense economically, several European broadcasters, the German and Swiss among them, have announced that they weren’t going along with it, and would stop showing the Olympics.
Editor: Editor: Dario Cavegn