Watching the Olympics in Malaysia

The BBC's London 2012 Olympics trailer.

Above is a pretty sweet screencap of the BBC's 100% CGI Olympic Games trailer. It features London's most prominent landmarks including the London Bridge, the London Eye, Big Ben, 30 St Mary Axe, St Paul's Cathedral, and the recently completed Shard against the Olympic Stadium's lights mounted on its distinctive triangular towers. Not to forget the lush greenery in the foreground that represents rural Britain. The BBC is of course the UK's long-standing broadcaster of the Olympics, though its rights to future Games may be in doubt.

The main channels BBC1/BBC1 HD, BBC2, BBC3, and BBC HD will be dedicated to the event over all 17 days of competition. In addition, there will be 24 live HD channels accessible via TV providers Sky, Virgin and Freesat. For Freeview and BT Vision subscribers, there will only be one additional channel. The BBC Sport website will also stream 2,500 hours of coverage.

In Malaysia, sole TV provider Astro is not also the broadcaster of this year's Olympics, having aired the previous three. It probably decided to focus its resources on Euro 2012, seeing that Malaysians are far more interested in football. In 2008, Astro broadcasted both the Euros and the Olympics. However, the cost of television rights to sporting events have risen sharply over the last few years. That, along with Astro's direction of acquiring more football rights (including the Premier League since 2010 and the Champions League from 2012-13), could be the reasons Astro is sitting out this Olympics.

Additionally, broadcasting the Olympics may not rake in as much advertising revenue as the Euros: For football games, large numbers of viewers are likely to pay a lot more attention to the programming. In the Olympics, when various sports are aired on up to 10 channels, viewership is diluted. Also, since many of the sports are unfamiliar, viewers pay less attention – a no-no for advertisers. This explanation is probably invalid in some other countries, where there is enough viewers for specific sports to sustain advertising rates. But my inkling is that this is not the case in Malaysia, where football is far too dominant over the rest.

Whatever Astro's reasoning is, this decision was made four years ago – even before the Beijing Games – when ESPN Star Sports was awarded the pay TV rights of Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 for 22 countries across Asia.

The official terrestrial (free-to-air) broadcaster. (RTM)

So, we have RTM and ESPN Star Sports. For as long as I can remember, state-funded broadcaster RTM has always been airing the Olympic Games, though not as comprehensively as on Astro. Their coverage is typically lower in production value and professionalism than on Astro, due to a lower budget. (I remember a TV2 commentator not knowing the name of a wrestler from China during the 2002 Asian Games and kept referring to her as "the Chinese girl".) Why does the International Olympic Committee award them broadcast rights every Olympics when they don't exactly deliver a good product?

NBC's Olympics
coverage emblem.

That's because the IOC (or FIFA and UEFA for that matter) always gives preference to free-to-air broadcasters in order maximise the audience for the Games. It is committed to making the event accessible to even those who cannot afford subscription TV. In Europe and North America, the Olympics are largely on free-to-air networks. That usually works out fine for viewers because you can expect the BBC and NBC to spend big on production and make full use of their on-air talent to roll out the best possible presentation of the games. That way, the viewers receive a good product, which enhances the Olympic brand.

The same cannot be said for RTM. With most of Malaysia's middle class sports viewers used to seeing well produced and highly professional sports coverage on Astro SuperSport and ESPN Star Sports, watching the Olympics on RTM can be a drag. My guess is, to protect its brand here, the IOC also awards rights to pay TV networks – the only ones who can provide a satisfactory experience to viewers.

Round-the-clock coverage will be provided on ESPN, Star Sports, ESPNEWS, ESPN HD, and 10 dedicated HD channels, all of which are available only on Astro. (I wonder if Astro are paying ESPN extra to carry those additional channels.) Key events (including the 100 meter final) will be showcased in 3D.

I expect ESPN Star Sports's coverage of the Games to be better than Astro's because of superior on-air talent, more experience in broadcasting overseas events and producing accompanying programming (Ace, Engine Block to name a few). I hope other viewers in Malaysia will take note of this as well and put some pressure on Astro to up their game or step aside from vertical integration.