Why live Olympics YouTube streaming is blocked in SA
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is streaming the Olympic Games live via its “Official Olympic Channel by the IOC” on YouTube to 64 countries, but South Africa is not part of the countries supported by the service. However, users can view all the action through SuperSport.
The IOC’s live streaming on its YouTube channel consists of 11 different simultaneous high-definition broadcasts, all with English language commentary. There are 10 live feeds from London 2012 plus a 24-hour broadcast of the Olympic News Channel.
YouTube highlighted that the IOC’s YouTube Channel will offer fans in these countries over 2,200 hours of high-definition sporting event coverage from London 2012, including all the medal finals.
However, local users trying to use the IOC’s live Olympics YouTube channel gets the message “To watch the Olympics Live in your country, please visit the list of London 2012 Broadcasters”.
While South Africans must use avenues other than YouTube to watch the Olympics live online, our neighbors in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique all have access to the live Olympic YouTube channel.
According to the IOC media statement, the live-streaming on the IOC’s YouTube channel provides access to the London 2012 Olympic Games in “territories where digital broadcast rights have not already been acquired by the IOC’s broadcast partner”.
In South Africa the SABC, SuperSport, and Maximo are broadcasting the 2012 London Olympic Games.
MultiChoice has special coverage of the 2012 Olympic Games on multiple SuperSport channels (Blitz, Bronze, Gold, Silver, Spirit, HD2, HD3, HD4, HD5) in countries where it operates, including South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
YouTube Olympics channel
No YouTube Olympics streaming in SA explained
SuperSport Communications Manager Clinton van der Berg explained that SuperSport has exclusive Internet rights in South Africa for the 2012 Olympic Games, which is why the YouTube Olympics channel is not supported in South Africa.
SuperSport’s Internet rights are non-exclusive in the rest of Africa, which explains why the Official Olympic channel by the IOC on YouTube is available in other African countries.
“SuperSport.com is streaming all four of our Olympic channels live so that subscribers have access to the live action wherever they happen to be,” explained van der Berg.
“We do the same for DStv Mobile’s offering where we are broadcasting the SuperSport Gold and Silver channels to their Mobile subscribers. This is obviously on top of the Gold, Silver, Bronze and Spirit DStv Broadcast channels we do as well.”
One drawback is that only DStv subscribers can get access to SuperSport’s live Olympics streaming. Van der Berg pointed out that all Internet users can access their non-live Olympics content.
Supersport Olympics streaming
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