Now on bbc news, The Media Show. Hello. What a summer of sport this is. Sport is all over tv, and coverage of Sports Events is what we are focusing on today. The olympics is on, weve just had the euros, and theres a new Cricket Competition called the hundred on primetime bbc, as well as sky. But in this age of infinite choice, live sport has to compete to hold our attention. Does Sport Need to be more attractive than an hour of fortnite or netflix, or tiktok . And has the amount of Money Tv companies are prepared to pay for sport fallen during the pandemic . Well, these are some of the questions that my all Star Panel of Sporting Supremos will answer today and between them, they are reaching hundreds of millions of viewers. They are andrew georgiou, president of sport at Discovery, and he joins us from tokyo, where Discovery are covering the olympics. Minal modha covers sport for ampere analysis, and Sanjay Patel is directing manager of the hundred for england and wales� cricket board. Sanjay, the hundred has got matches on every day. You want to bring cricket to a new wider audience how are the ratings going for it so far . What are the Tv Audiences like . Well, were a week into the hundred and weve been absolutely delighted with the reaction, both in stadia and on broadcast. Over the first week, weve reached 8. 4 million people. Whats really important to us is 3. 3 Million people who never watched cricket before this year. So that suggests we are reaching a new audience. And we were just blown away by the two opening games the womens opening game got 1. 9 million, which was the peak, which is great for the Womens Game in domestic cricket. And the mens peaked at 2. 5 million so, so far, weve been really encouraged and blown away by those figures. Well be hearing more from you on that later, as well as brian henderson, director of cricket for Sky Sports. But lets start with gb� s Gold Medals, and the Olympics Coverage on tv this week. Andrew georgiou is president of sport at Discovery andrew, you are the main broadcaster for the olympics in britain and much of europe, just give us an idea of how big this operation is for you. Can you give us a sense of the scale . Yes, its an enormous operation, thats for sure, notjust the broadcast operation, but the entire olympics in tokyo is tens of thousands of people who have gathered, 11,000 athletes plus another 10,000 officials and volunteers, and others who come to actually make this show happen. Its the biggest show on earth, quite frankly, when it comes to Sporting Events. Our operation with our sublicenses is, you know, several thousand in size. We have scaled back the number of people we have sent to tokyo, obviously given the current Covid Situation here, so we are sending less people than we had originally planned. But it is an enormous operational effort, and in the current environment with additional rules and procedures, and things that we have to do to keep the japanese public safe, its become a logistical challenge, for sure. And youve got the rights to the Olympic Games in 50 European Territories . Yeah, weve broadcast them in 50 different markets and 19 different languages across our key platforms. European sport, most european markets, and Discovery , which we launched in seven european markets, including the uk where the launch has gone really, really well. There was a bit of controversy here last week when viewers realised that Bbc Television were not showing the games on terrestrial tv in the same way that they did in london in 2012, or in 2016 in rio. Just explain what the deal is that you have with the bbc, hows that working . Well, the bbc for this particular games is actually the Rights Holder. Our contract with the ioc doesnt actually start until the beijing games, including beijing and paris 24. But in order for us to ensure that the bbc continue to have access to the games in 2022 and 24, we decided to share both these games and the next cycle of games between our two platforms. And thats the Arrangement Weve got with them, thats whats in place right now. So you must� ve paid an awful lot of money to get these rights. Can you give us an idea how much . Well, the 1. 3 billion is public information. So thats in the marketplace, and what weve paid for two cycles of olympics two Winter Games and two summer games. Minal, how unusual is the way that the Olympics Tv rights have been awarded . Does a governing body in this case, the ioc prefer to deal with individual markets . I dont think its that unusual. With really big rights so the likes of Fifa Or Premier league, they sometimes do It Territory by territory because you are able to get more Rights Revenue by doing it like that. But actually, weve seen a slight shift even from the likes of uefa who sold their womens. Champions league rights globally because they saw an opportunity there. So what we might end up seeing is Rights Holders shifting a littlel more towards regional sales, i just for their own ease, i guess, as theyre only dealing with one. Person instead of several different companies within the territories. Andrew, i know that it sort of seemed to take people in the uk a bit by surprise, that Discovery-and-eurosport'>Discovery And Eurosport had the olympics did Discovery undercook it slightly in terms of Promotion And Advertising in the uk . I dont think so. I think, obviously Discovery is a new service in the uk, so i think people are still getting familiar with that service. And up until this month, in fact, sport did not feature on Discovery . And were using the olympics to really showcase the breadth of content that Discovery can give the british public and the olympics is a really good way of doing that. And this debate is actually a nice promotional vehicle, and one of the reasons weve included the olympics on Discovery is to increase awareness and to showcase the breadth of content that we do have on that product. So im not sure its undercooked. And eurosport is another platform that we also have which is in 14 Million homes in the uk so it is a pretty broad distribution that weve been able to give the games. And have you any idea yet how well its working . Have you got new subscribers because of the olympics . Do you know that yet . Yeah, the level of interest in the olympics has been really, really strong, and we havent released the official figures yet well do so probably in the next couple of days as we get the first week under our belt. But what i can say is that, especially the digital platforms have performed exceptionally well. Our free platforms in eurosport. Com have seen a Record Number of visitors, and the Uptake And Engagement on Discovery has also been really positive. For 4. 99 for a months subscription, you get every single event on Discovery , and thats the only place you can get it. So its not an unreasonable deal, especially when we are offering a free three Day Trial up until sunday this week. Sanjay patel, let me bring you in here youre director at the ecb, and there is a dilemma that all Sports Bodies faces you can sell the rights of your event to the highest bidder and make lots of money, but there is a risk then that fewer people will watch it and cricket knows all about that. The ioc would probably be getting more viewers in the uk if the bbc had all the rights to tokyo. So how do you make thatjudgment . I think whats really important is youve got the right balance between Revenue And Reach. I think weve got that Balance Right with cricket, and in particular across the hundred, where sky will televise every single game of the hundred live, or the mens and womens competitions. But theyve also given us an extensive reach across their channels, they are using Sky Sports main event and also sky one, and Sky Sports youtube. So weve got really good reach across the sky platform, and obviously if you supplement that with the 11 live games on bbc, we think weve got that really nice balance between getting enough revenue in to build investment in the tournament, and make it what it is, but also getting that Reach Right and making sure we reach more people and appeal for cricket. Now the hundred is a completely new format in cricket why did you feel that a new format was needed . We were going after and wanted to get more families involved, particularly younger people. So it was really important that we had a format that we could actually get into specific spaces and times. So were finishing our games roughly around 9. 15pm, and i think that allows families to get home at a sensible hour. When we were doing the t20, we were going beyond that and getting into 9. 45, 10pm finishes. And we felt that that was probably too late. So for us, shortening the game was really important hence why the hundred came around. As weve said, the rights are shared with the bbc and sky. Earlier on, i spoke to bryan henderson, director of cricket at Sky Sports, and i asked him at what point they got involved in the hundred. This is all part of a new television Rights Deal formed in 2017, it was initially supposed to be a 2020 competition, as part of a new five Year Deal that ran from 2020 24. And yeah, like i said, it was meant to be T20 Competition they came to us in 2018, i think, and suggested that the Format Change to 100. And at the time it was a really interesting idea and since then, weve worked really closely with the ecb and the bbc in terms of forming this new competition. Its quite interesting that a broadcaster is involved in creating essentially a new format for sport. Yeah, and its been a really interesting process, and i think its been a really good process. And i think what ecb, sky, and bbc will all agree is that working closely together has been a really good idea. Its definitely been a collaboration when we committed to spending over £1 billion to sport as part of this wider deal, the boss at the time was determined this would be more of a collaboration between the broadcaster and governing body. Thats so interesting, i wonder, youve obviously paid a lot of money for this do you see this as almost like a lost leader that youre hoping to convert more people to cricket so that therefore theyll be more willing to take on a Sky Subscription long term so they can see it . Thats a good question. I think the aims for Year One is really, very simply having an appetite for year two, and all we really want is for people to really enjoy the competition this year and to be excited about it happening again next year. Theres definitely different metrics for success than how we would normallyjudge a deal or how we run a sport, its not necessarily about figures or upgrades, but about appetite and reach. And one of the decisions we made was to widen our reach by broadening our distribution of the tournament. Having said that, the Viewing Figures have been incredible, so were absolutely thrilled. So how or when do you see it making money for you . Well, thats the big old question and theres a whole load of different things that go into that. You know, the tournament is just part of a fantastic offering of cricket and sport, so i cant get involved too much in discussing that. Lets talk a bit more about the tournament itself and the way you are covering it and it is meant to be a more family friendly competition, ive been there myself, ive seen it first hand. Youve also got stuart broad, a current england player, very popular and well known with a Pop Star Fiance in your presenting team. How different is the way that you are covering this to the way you go about covering a Test Match . It is different. I think its important that if youre going to reach new audiences, you need to cover things in a slightly different way. We went back at The End of 2019, we did a process called Sky Labs where we set up a full week immersion, a way from the day to day grind of what we normally do, to work out what our strategy was for the tournament. And we came up with five pillars. One was called cricket for everybody, which was really about how we distribute the tournament and constant links to participation its really important that more girls and boys pick up a Bat And Ball as part of this. The Second Pillar was about supercharged entertainment which is what your question is related to and that was about having a different on screen team, about linking between event broadcasts and representing cricket in a slightly more interesting way. The third pillar was called whos winning, which is simply about simplification of graphics and language, so more people could understand the sport. The fourth pillar was about getting close to the players and player storytelling, and avatars and technology we are doing a fantastic Interview Today with the female Leg Spinner Firm scotland who plays for birmingham phoenix. Finally, the Fifth Pillar was about a force for good, which is about our Diversity And Inclusion plans and links to sustainability, and opportunities for young people. So its been a really well thought out, planned tournament. And the coverage was definitely going to be much more entertaining, but probably no more than that for sky viewers. Youve talked about how you obviously want to reach out to a wider audience, people who may not have watched cricket before do you know yet how successful it has been in shifting to a new audience . Have you got figures that can let us know that . Well, we do have figures and demographics. I dont have them exactly to hand, its definitely hitting a younger, more female audience, and its definitely hitting a bigger audience. And were grateful for the role that the bbc has helped us in doing that. Sanjay patel, is this the first time that a tv company, sky in this case, has been involved in creating a new Sporting Format . Well, they werent necessarily involved in creating it. I think that came from us at ecb, and i think thats really important because we are in charge of the game. What we did very early on though was bring both our broadcast partners in Sky And Bbc and explain what we were trying to do, and to get a view from them. Because i think if you didnt have those partners supporting you from the start, this wouldve been a difficult, if not impossible journey. So they were brought in right from the very start, and then what we did was we went around building this as a complete collaboration so everything was done in conjunction with our two broadcast partners. And i guess thats what youre seeing now, youre seeing brilliant promotion from both Sky And Bbc leading up to the tournament, and a great Broadcast Product for people to enjoy. So theyve been brought into the vision and the journey all the way through. A lot of the graphics on screen with the hundred have been clearly designed to look like a video game, why is that . I dont think it was deliberate to look like a video game, what we were trying to do was simplify the game and the graphics because its a simple concept 100 balls per side, whoever gets the most runs wins, and we want to make this as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. And demystifying some of the cricket graphics was something that we looked at hence why youre seeing that on screen now. Do you think that kids these days just have a much shorter Attention Span . Youre competing with Tiktok And Snapchat for their attention is it a completely impossible challenge to get them to watch a Test Match these days . I dont think it is. I think what you have to do with the younger audience is firstly, make sure you are relevant, and secondly, make sure youre operating in the spaces that those young audiences are in, particularly in the digital space. And i think when you do that and you get involved in your sport, over time theyll grow to love cricket. And im sure over time, as they grow to appreciate more, there is the longer format of the game which will still remain the pinnacle of our game. Now, back in 2005, england won The Ashes in a nail biting series interesting cricket really was at an all time high at that time. Now the Ecb Kind of cashed in on that, didnt they . Because through a big Money Deal with sky, cricket was taken away from Terrestrial Television and put behind a pay wall. In hindsight, how Big A Mistake was that, sanjay . Some would say the creation of the hundred is a bit of an admission of the fact that you need to get people back watching cricket in numbers we havent seen since 2005 . Well, its very difficult for me to comment on that deal at the time, because it was a very long time ago and i wasnt around. So there could have been a very different set of circumstances that the men had when the decision was taken. What i do know is that the game needed revenue, and it needed revenue to invest in the things that we need as a sport. That was things like stadium infrastructure, participation, england teams, etc. But it also needs audiences, doesnt it . Because without that, wheres the future . Absolutely, it needs both, and thats why i come back to the balance between Revenue And Reach being so important. And in this deal that weve got now, i think weve got that Balance Right because weve got good revenue in order to invest in the game, and as we are seeing through the hundred, weve got brilliant reach, as well through our partnership with the bbc. Sanjay, The Ashes this christmas, 2021 in australia, it looks like it could possibly be at risk because of the pandemic. There is talk of postponing it, theres also talk at some English Players might not go. What can you tell about that . Look, i think that very early days, i dont think any discussion has taken place between the two boards. Myjob, im concentrated on delivering the hundred and making sure the hundred is as Big A success as it possibly can be. So im not involved in those conversations if they are taking place. Well, sanjay, very good luck with the hundred. Andrew georgiou, i know you are a big Cricket Fan yourself what do you make of the hundred and what it represents . I think innovation is really important, and as sanjay said, finding young audiences on platforms that they enjoy content is paramount, and doing it in a way that is exciting and engaging is critical. So if a format does allow you to engage in new audiences, then youve got to explore them as long as you dont compromise the integrity of the sport. And i dont think the hundred compromises the integrity of the sport. Test cricket has its place, it has a very clear following, and i think the hundred has a different place in the sport, you know, in cricket. So i think it does play a role, and i think it fills an Engagement Opportunity for a younger audience, for sure. So would Discovery be interested at any point in bidding for the hundred, or bidding for The Ashes . I believe there was a rumour that you did bid for The Ashes in 2021 . We look at everything, to be quite frank. We look at where we can create content on our platforms that engages audiences that help grow our platforms and cricket does have a particular passion in the uk, and i think it can drive audiences. And we look at everything that comes across our desk. So did you bid for the 2021 ashes . We dont talk about the specific bids in any context, because thatsjust not something we do. But safe to say that all Premium Content that comes across our desk, we take a very good look at. Ok, understood. Minal, tell me, what do you make of the hundred, of the idea of a terrestrial broadcaster the bbc, in this Case And Sky both getting together, its a bit of a Hybrid Model . Yeah, i think its a fantastic idea. We kind of saw it tested | in cricket with the Mens World Cup a few years ago, when sky shared the final. Rights with Channel 4 and they actually ended up getting an average audience of like 8. 9 million people, which was the highest its been for a very long time for a cricket match. So this idea of, you know, going and reaching the masses through free to air, whether its the bbc or platforms like youtube in order to access the younger audiences, but still getting that paid Tv Revenue from the likes of sky shows ia Rights Holder who is thinkingl about not onlyjust safeguarding the future of the sport, but also ensuring theyre getting enough revenue to feed back into the grassroots of it, as well. Andrew, we mentioned covid earlier, its clearly created a lot of uncertainty in sport. You know, we werent even sure the olympics were going ahead, and we are very grateful that they are. Weve seen concern over the rugby league World Cup at the Australian Grand Prix how wary are Sports Broadcasters at the moment . It must be a very difficult time . I think weve actually gotten quite used to bit, to be quite frank. There arent many events at the moment which are really being cancelled or postponed, i think we are all learning how to deal with running live Sporting Events in a covid safe environment, and the olympics is a really good example of that. Yes, it makes things a bit tricky, you have to put certain protocols in place to ensure safety, and every market that we operate in around the world is at a different stage in dealing with the pandemic. So i think you have to show some flexibility in how you approach it, for sure. But when Adam Peaty wins his Gold Medal, he doesnt really care about the covid restrictions in the rules, and the lack of crowd he shows his emotions and he did that in full force when he won his gold. And theres been another five Gold Medals for Team Gb, and long may it continue. But i dont think the athletes care, at The End of the day, theyjust want to get on with doing what theyve trained, in quite challenging circumstances, to achieve. And in terms of your practicalities of covering covid, have you got many staff working outside working on this . I mean, presenters actually that you wouldve had in tokyo hosting it from elsewhere . We have scaled down our operation, thats for sure, and i think thats both out of respect for the local japanese community, as well as managing some of the uncertainty about what we could do on site. Things like accessing athletes is a Bit Trickier at this olympics, you know, getting access and moving around venues is a Bit Trickier. And theres practical examples like the Mix Zone where the athletes, after theyve won their medal or lost their heat, or whatever it might be, have to walk through the Mix Zone where all the broadcasters of the world can have a chance to interview them. But just social distancing now means that Mix Zone is really long, and the practicalities of being able to manage that in a Covid Environment mean its more challenging. So theres lots of practical challenges around what you need to do, and weve had to adapt to those and leaving some people at home unfortunately has been part of that. Minal, has the pandemic reduced the value of live sport for broadcasters . So, we have seen a downward pressure on Sports Rights across the last year. Weve seen it in football in particular, weve had the Premier League whove rolled ion their contracts, rather than riskl going to a tender and see a decrease in the domestic rights value. Weve seen issues in france which was actually due to a collapse of one of the broadcast partners, | but the media rights have fallen| quite substantially there. But where we have seen a bit of an uptake is in the us, where La Liga had a huge deal with disney theyre really. Going for Sports Rights over there through their espn platforms. So that seems to be a bit of a counterbalance, but i think the next 12 18 months will be crucial in terms of where the future of Sports Rights values are. Weve seen a lot of big disruptors in the Sports Arena recently, and in the last couple of years, perhaps one of the biggest has been amazon how do you assess what amazon is up to so far, and indeed, what it might be plotting . I think youve got to say that amazons been a really big success story. Theyve been very strategic in how theyve bought their rights so for example, in the uk, they are buying them in december which coincides with the christmas sales, i and weve seen that its not just getting subscribers onto amazon prime, but converting that revenue into the online platform, as well. Theyve taken a bit more of A Back Seat at the moment, and i think what they will do is consolidate for a bit, then in a couple years time, i decide where they want to go. Minal modha, thank you very much indeed. Thats all weve got time for today, im afraid. Thank you to all my guests andrew georgiou, president of sports at Discovery, a particular thanks for staying up so late into the tokyo night. To Sanjay Patel, director of the hundred for the ecb, and we also heard from bryan henderson, director of cricket at Sky Sports. Well, The Media Show will be back with me at the same time next week. Thank you very much for listening, and goodbye. Good afternoon. It is sunny spells and scattered showers for many of us for the remainder of the afternoon. Lets take a look at what has been happening. Quite a lot of cloud, generally, across the country. Showers have been sitting through eastern Scotland And North East England and more widespread showers through central and southern wales down into central and Southern England as well. Here, the Odd Rumble of thunder but with some sunshine we could see temperatures peaking at 21 celsius, a little Bit Cooler further north. And that Cooler Air is set to descend steadily south. Behind it, this cold front. That is going to continue to enhance some showers for sunday across southern parts of england, in particular. Some of those showers, as the isobars open up, the winds fall lighter, and they could be heavy and slow moving, still with the Odd Rumble of thunder. So, that is going to be an issue across central and Southern England. Behind it, sunny spells, fewer showers, but not as warm as it has been of late. Top temperatures, 12 to 21 degrees. This is bbc news. The headlines at five. Its known as � super saturday� and there was a great start for Team Gb in the tokyo olympics with a gold and a World Record in the 4x100m mixed medley final Team Work makes Dream Work another gold, in the triathlon mixed Relay Event and finally a first Gold Medal Forjonny Brownlee at his third olympic Games Victory for Elaine Thompson Herah ofjamaica in the womens 100 metres final in tokyo. But before that there was heartbreakfor Team Gb sprinter, Dina Asher Smith who had to withdraw and im Austin Halewood at the bbc Sports Desk with all the latest on the medals, the records and the upsets in tokyo