Universal Sports to Offer Free Preview of Winter Olympic Coverage
NBCU's sports cable network has just announced a free preview
of its Vancouver
winter Olympics coverage.
Universal Sports' Olympics-themed programming will be
available free to any cable operator that wants to carry it, the channel said
Wednesday (Feb. 3), including the opportunity to sell local avails on the network.
The announcement comes against a backdrop of concerns by
Comcast/NBCU merger critics about access to programming by competing cable
operators, including to NBC's Olympics programming,
The coverage will consist of a countdown show. Though no
actual competition coverage is on tap, it will include highlights and updates, as
well as five hours of live news and information from the games, including
interviews and analysis.
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Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.