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Major Media Web Sites Unhappy with Olympic Coverage Ban

The Associated Press reported that media outlets say they will use a December conference in Switzerland to put pressure on the International Olympic Committee to relax its Net-ban policies, which prevented Web sites from offering even short audio reports featuring Sydney competition - even video and audio highlights - despite those same feeds being permitted on television and radio.

Olympic organizers justified such a ban, saying the scope of the global Internet would interfere with broadcast contracts awarded by region, said AP. NBC paid a reported $4 billion for exclusive US rights to the Olympics through 2008, including $705 million for the Sydney games, for example.

The AP added that while CBS was allowed to run Olympic highlights on its TV news programs after NBC's broadcast day ended, the CBS Sportsline Web site was prevented from doing so. Also, despite ties with NBC, even MSNBC.com could not run footage, and NBC Online's NBCOlympics.com joint venture with Quokka Sports was only allowed to use still images from television feeds.

IOC rules also prevented such major news outlets as the British Broadcasting Corp., which had Olympic broadcast rights at home, from posting radio bulletins on the Internet while the games were on.

Reported by Newsbytes, www.newsbytes.com.

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