The Olympic Channel has had around 300 million views across all of its platforms since it was launched on the day of the Rio 2016 Closing Ceremony in August, general manager Mark Parkman told insidethegames.
The cumulative figure includes the Channel itself on YouTube and the social media pages, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Parkman also revealed the under 34 years of age category was responsible for “nearly 60 percent” of these views, which he claims is proof that they are reaching the right audience even in the early stages of the Channel’s life.
The American, a former operations executive at Olympic Broadcasting Services, said the Channel, launched on August 21, was now entering its “second phase” – which aims to allow viewers to enjoy a more “personalized” experience.
“Over the last few days we have consolidated that figure and have started to do some analytics reporting,” Parkman told insidethegames at SPORTELMonaco here.
“We have had tremendous success with social media since we started.
“We have been focused on putting our content out on social media handles and now we are in our secondary phase.
“We are trying to drive people back to the platform to get longer engagement, experience it more so they can then personalize their viewing – so that is the next phase.
“One of our core missions was to go for that younger demographic and almost 60 percent of our views to date have been in that under 34 category.
“So from that perspective, we are quite pleased.”
Parkman also claimed they were targeting the addition of “one or two” founding partners of the Channel by the end of the year, which are likely to come from The Olympic Partner (TOP) program.
Bridgestone and Toyota, both members of the TOP sponsorship scheme, have already partnered with the Channel.
Bridgestone, the world’s largest tire and rubber company, became the first founding partner in August, before car giants Toyota signed an agreement with the Channel shortly after.
“There will only be five or six of these in total and we are having good discussions and making good progress,” Parkman added.
“We are not putting hard timelines on it but hopefully we will have one or two more in place by the end of the year.”
The Channel received a boost yesterday when deals were penned with six International Federations (IFs), including the International Cycling Union.
This brought the total number of IFs who have struck a deal with the Channel to 33, with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), FIFA, the International Handball Federation (IHF), the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) and the International Surfing Association (ISA) the only Olympic Federations yet to reach an agreement with the Channel.
“The coverage of the live events is one of our successes to date,” said Parkman.
“We’ve had nearly 40 live events from 10 or 11 federations, and that is part of the purpose – to grow these sports.
“Our aim is to keep the Games alive 365 days a year and attract a younger demographic.
“We have accomplished goals that we set out to achieve and we are hitting our demographics but we are never satisfied and you always want to achieve more.”
By Liam Morgan
Republished with permission from insidethegames.biz.