In UK, BBC may not now win the rights to the 2014 Winter Olympics the 2016 Summer Games after the International Olympic Committee turned down the European Broadcasting Union’s usually successful bid on behalf of 75 public service broadcasters as too low. Now broadcasters will have to bid for rights individually, meaning commercial players like BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) or ITV (LSE: ITV) could be in the running for the first time in 50 years, and so would other European media companies. What could it mean for the larger media industry… ?

—A Murdoch Olympics? As IHT.com points out, News Corp-owned Sky Italia has already negotiated a commercial deal to show the Games from 2010 to 2016, while another Murdoch property, Fox Turkey, has bought the rights from 2014 to 2016. Although IOC rules state that the games must be free-to-air and available to at least 95 percent of the population, the presence of advertisers on commercial channels could lead to scheduling difficulties: US sports fans complained when NBC broadcast Beijing footage at prime-time instead of showing it live to maximise advertising revenue and failed to put clips online. Lots more on PCUK, here.

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