The rescheduled Tokyo Olympics are just about four months away, and while COVID-19 vaccines are being rolled out across the world, the pandemic is still going to have an effect on how the games are produced and brought to viewers.

In a roundtable discussion with NBC, Canada’s CBC and Germany’s ZDF and ARD, broadcasters revealed how their plans have changed as a result of the year-long delay and ongoing pandemic. The main takeaway, like so many other major productions, is a shift to remote workflows.

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Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics, says that the planned programming for NBC’s coverage of the Tokyo games is not going to be noticeably different than what it would have been had the Olympics gone on as normal in 2020. However, behind the scenes, more production will be done from the U.S. than would have occurred in 2020.

“We’re probably moving home about 10% of the workforce who would have been in Tokyo,” said Zenkel. “And there is a corresponding increase back home.”

NBC will still have commentators and editorial crews on-site to provide the usual venue presence and coverage on the athletes and the host city.

Similarly, the CBC and Germany’s broadcasters are also hosting more of their productions from their home bases. CBC estimates that it will have about 130 people in Tokyo for the games, down by about 250 from what it has had at recent Olympics. Germany, for the first time, will have the majority of its production take place remotely.

All of these countries have experience with remote production elements during the Olympics, but these games will be the largest effort to date.

NBC’s Zenkel admitted that they previously thought there would be a barrier with having the production crew separated from the venues and being immersed among the athletes, coaches and fans; what he believed were crucial elements of its presentations.

“[B]ut what I think we’ve discovered, because we were required to, is that the presentation remains very, very compelling,” he said. “We’ve overcome the fear. Then, there’s been some clear advancements in the process and the technology that’s been utilized to make this work.”

Beyond the 2021 version of the Olympics, when the pandemic is no longer an issue, all of the participants believe that there will be increased remote production elements for future games, but that there will always be a certain level of production on-site at the Olympics.

The full interview is available through www.olympic.org.  

STAMFORD, Conn.—In a world without the pandemic, the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo would be starting tomorrow, July 24. Instead, the games were postponed to 2021.

Now, as July 23 marks the year-long countdown to the rescheduled games’ Opening Ceremony, NBC Sports, the U.S. broadcast home of the Olympics, has released a video that will get people’s adrenaline pumping for all the action.

Despite the optimism that NBC portrays for the Summer Olympics taking place in 2021, and the fact that American team sports are starting to return (albeit without actual fans), some are still concerned about the logistics of hosting the games at this time next year.

In an interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK, Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee, said that if the current conditions surrounding COVID-19 continue it would not be feasible to hold the games. He suggested that having a vaccine was key to an improved situation and that he remains hopeful for one.

There have been recent reports of “encouraging” progress for a vaccine from an Oxford University team.

In the event that the situation does not improve, however, the International Olympic Committee and Japanese organizers are on record that the games would be cancelled rather than postpone a second time. 

LONDON—There is no option C for the Tokyo Olympics if the Summer Games had to be delayed again, according to a BBC report quoting Tokyo Olympics Games Chief Yoshiro Mori.

The Tokyo Olympics, which were scheduled to take place this summer, have been postponed to July 23-Aug. 8, 2021, because of COVID-19 pandemic. However, according to the BBC report, health experts said that it would be difficult to hold the Summer Games at that time if no vaccine or effective drugs have been found to treat COVID-19.

If asked whether the Games could then take place in 2022, Mori simply replied, “no,” saying in that situation the Olympics would be scrapped.

Health experts hope that a vaccine will be developed by mid-2021.

For more information, read BBC’s story. 

LAUSANNE, Switzerland—There will be no Summer Olympics in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, this according to a joint statement from the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee.

IOC President Thomas Bach and the Prime Minister of Japan, Abe Shinzo, as well as other members of the IOC and Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, made the announcement during a conference call on Tuesday morning, March 24.

“In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO (World Health Organization) today, the IOC President and Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympics Games and the international community,” the statement read.

According to the IOC’s statement, as recently as March 23, the WHO reported that there were more than 375,000 recorded cases of COVID-19 throughout the world, with cases in nearly every country.

“The leaders agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present,” the statement continued. “Therefore, it was agreed that the Olympic flame will stay in Japan. It was also agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.”

In terms of the Olympics’ broadcast, an NBC Sports spokesperson gave a statement to The Hollywood Reporter earlier in the week, saying: “These are extraordinary and unprecedented times, and we fully support the IOC’s decision to step up its scenario-planning for the Tokyo Olympics. We are prepared to stand behind any decision made by the IOC, the Japanese government and the world health officials with whom they are working regarding the Tokyo Olympics.”

This marks the first postponement of the Olympics in modern history. The Games were cancelled in 1916, 1940 and 1944 due to World War I and World War II, respectively.

TOKYO—As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the globe and with nations ordering citizens to take drastic measures to reduce contagion, the world’s largest sporting and broadcast event hangs in the balance. 

On Sunday, Canada, followed by Australia, both announced that they would not send athletes to the 2020 Summer Games, which take place in Tokyo, July 24-Aug. 9. The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committee said in a statement that it urgently recommended that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) postpone the games. "This is not solely about athlete health—this is about public health," it said in a statement.

Their withdrawals came after the IOC issued a statement that it was still evaluating the future of the games but would make a final decision within four weeks. 

"A decision about a postponement today could not determine a new date for the Olympic Games because of the uncertain developments in both directions; an improvement, as we are seeing in a number of countries thanks to the severe measures being taken, or a deteriorating situation in other countries,” IOC President, Thomas Bach, wrote in a letter to athletes over the weekend.

Bach noted that the IOC is looking at a postponement to a later date rather than an outright cancellation. "Cancellation would not solve any problem and would help nobody," he added. "Therefore it is not on our agenda."

Japan is reportedly spending $12.6 billion on the games and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told lawmakers over the weekend that it would be difficult to hold the games during the pandemic without behavioral restraints. 

“If it is difficult to hold (the Games) in a complete way, a decision of postponement would be unavoidable,” he said.

NBC, the broadcaster covering the games for the U.S.—which has reported that it has sold $1.5 billion in advertising—said earlier this month that it is financially prepared should the event be postponed. 

“Should there be some disruption, we anticipate these kinds of things in big-contract language,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said at the Morgan Stanley Investor Conference, as reported by Vulture in early March. “It’s full steam ahead. We’re getting ready. We also have insurance for any expenses we make, so there should be no losses should there not be an Olympics.” 

TOKYO—The impact of the coronavirus could lead to the first non-wartime cancellation of the Olympic games in modern history, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee told the Associated Press.

Dick Pound, who has been with the IOC since 1978, says that the organization has a two- to three-month window—which at the latest would be late May—to determine if the coronavirus has been contained and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics can go on as currently scheduled or if it is best to cancel the games.

“In and around that time, I’d say folks are going to have to ask: ‘Is this under sufficient control that we can be confident about going to Tokyo or not?’” Pound told AP.

The coronavirus outbreak began in China but has been spreading, with more than 80,000 people infected across the globe and 2,700 killed. Japan has four reported deaths to date, per AP.

Pound said that a postponement or relocation of the event was unlikely because of numerous logistical and scheduling problems that could occur, including for broadcasters.

“There’s so many moving parts, so many countries and different seasons, and competitive seasons, and television seasons. You can’t just say, ‘We’ll do it in October,’” said Pond.

In North America, moving the Olympics to the fall would then put them in conflict with broadcast schedules for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, college football and European soccer.

As of now, Pound told AP that the plan is still for the Olympic games to go on as scheduled in Tokyo, but the ultimate decision will be based on how the virus progresses and the IOC’s discussions with the World Health Organization.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to open July 24.

MONTREAL—NEP Europe will have a busy summer covering the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo and the UEFA Euro 2020 soccer tournament. To help with its “summer of sport” coverage, the production partner has acquired a range of Grass Valley live IP production equipment to add to its OB and flypack fleet.

One of the new additions to NEP Europe’s arsenal is the GV LDX 86N cameras. These cameras feature GV’s built-in DirectIP capability that was developed in conjunction with NEP. This enables NEP to send just the camera heads to a location, while the other controls for the cameras and the production can occur off-site. With this latest addition of 60 native 4K LDX 86N cameras, NEP Europe now has more than 500 in stock.

Additional GV equipment that will be added to NEP Europe are 30 RefleX SuperXpander Kit lens adapters, as well as LDX C86N compact cameras and the 6 M/E Kahuna 9600 and Kula 3 M/E switchers.

For more information, visit www.grassvalley.com. 

STAMFORD, Conn.—The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo are just about a year away, and Twitter and NBC are going for content gold via a newly announced partnership for the games. As a result of the pairing, NBC and Twitter will boost Olympic coverage via exclusive daily programming, daily viewer polls and video highlights.

Every morning during the 2020 Games, NBC Olympics will produce a 20-minute live studio program from Tokyo that will air exclusively on Twitter. The program will showcase highlights, athlete interviews, stories from the host city and feature Twitter reactions from the games.

Twitter will also show a daily live look-in of NBC Olympics Primetime or Primetime Plus coverage, with the specific coverage of an athlete, sport or event determined each day via a fan poll.

Additional content will come through clips of the most memorable moments from the games, produced by NBC Olympics and published on Twitter. There will also be coverage of pre-games content, starting in February 2020, including real-time highlights of Olympic sports and the U.S. Olympic Team Trials.

“A seminal event like the Olympics offered us the opportunity to think bigger and more robustly about how fans can engage in and around the world-class content that the NBC Olympics team will be bringing to bear,” said Kay Madati, global vice president and head of content partnerships at Twitter. “This partnership gives us the opportunity to bring our highly-engaged audience even closer to NBC Olympics’ coverage of the action happening in Tokyo, providing more content to fuel the already electric Olympic conversation on Twitter.”

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will take place from July 24-Aug 9, 2020.