Paris 2024: France T l visions on making the most of being the home turf rights holder with a plethora of commentators and ENG crews By Heather McLean
Friday, June 7, 2024 - 09:28
Print This Story
France T l visions is making the most of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics being on its home turf. The rights holder for France is gathering a plethora of experts and commentators to bring every sport to life for viewers at home this year, as well as sending a huge team of ENG crews out into Paris to conduct live interviews throughout the Games.
On pressures for this Games, Pascal Golomer, France T l vision' deputy director of sports, responsible for editorial, who is overseeing this aspect of the broadcaster's Olympic and Paralympic coverage, says the eyeballs that will be on France T l visions during the Games is the main issue the team is facing; as the French rights holder, everyone will be watching for mistakes, he says.
The expectations are quite high, he notes. When you broadcast at four o'clock in the morning normally, even if there's something not as perfect as we had expected, it's not big story. But primetime for the Olympics in Paris, we can't make mistakes; we have to persue the zero-defect goal because we know that people are expecting the best from us. So, it's going to be tough.
Expert opinions
France T l visions is bringing in more knowledgeable voices than ever before for Paris 2024 as part of that push to be the best. Golomer states: We have hired 65 expert consultants, most of them former sports athletes, and we have 80 journalists as reporters, commentators, editors, and more. That's a huge team compared to what we did in Tokyo, Rio, and London. Even London in Europe, it was smaller than Paris.
Read more Paris 2024: Editorial approaches with Olympic TV channels and studios galore for the Games at France T l visions
We have one expert consultant for each sport, he goes on. For example, in fencing, there are three different swords: foil, sabre, and the third one is p e. Usually, we have one consultant who's would comment across the whole fencing competition, but because we're in Paris, it's quite easy and there's no need to send three people to Tokyo or to Rio, so we have one consultant for each sword. They're each expert in their competition, as former athletes, usually medallists, former Olympians.
He adds: We are quite happy and proud to send people on site. We think it's important. With the commentators, the result is different on site. They can feel the atmosphere. They can meet with the athletes, the staff, the families, and they can share that with the audience. If you stay in the headquarters and you comment what you see on screen, we think it's different. Of course, it's more expensive. But it's better.
France T l visions is bringing the journey of the Olympic flame to millions of viewers live for the first time
Grand plans
Although this sounds like a grand plan, it is not without issues, adds Golomer: It's a lot of people and we didn't have the time and the opportunity to test them on real competitions [in advance of the Games]. Of course, we talk with them. Some of them, they made some tests. But we cannot be sure 100% they're going to be able to be passionate, and at the same time experts able to explain the rules to the audience. It's a hope that they will be at the top of their game! We cannot be sure 100%, especially in the small sports.
When I saw the other day that my on-screen countdown said 60 days, I said, oh, my God. 60 days! . But we have to be ready. Even though we also have Roland-Garros and we have Tour de France and we have European Athletics, we have to work early in the morning and late at night to fix the last problems
However, he adds that the mix of expert former athletes is a perfect gender mix for the Olympics, with 33 women and 32 men. That's quite difficult in sports, to be able to reach the exact gender parity, notes Golomer.
He adds that it has not been possible to get this equal mix for the Paralympics due to the complexity of explaining live the categories and classifications for each sport, which do require former experience.
He says: The most important thing is to find the best experts in each sport among former athletes and technical staff. In the Paralympics, if you don't have the expertise, it's impossible to comment, it's too difficult. And unfortunately, women are not yet very well represented among former para athletes who play an active role in their federation and who feel ready to share their passion and expertise. Things are changing but it will take time
Home turf advantages
Being on home ground does create interesting advantages for France TV, Golomer says. There are a few things we're going to do in Paris that we won't do in Los Angeles, and we have never done before [on an Olympics]. For example, sending several crews live with the 4G transmission across Paris to make live segments. They're going to interview people live that are attending the competitions, or volunteers on the Games.
Adds Golomer: Usually we do [these kind of interviews] in short segments with editing that would be broadcast in the evening, but in Paris the crews will be live on motorbikes going from to one point to other one, and they're going to be on our channels France 2 and France 3 maybe five to seven times per day.
This means our audience can experience the atmosphere in Paris, he continues. When we were in Tokyo, we were in the studio. We had nice shots of Tokyo, and that's it. We didn't have reporters in Tokyo to share the atmosphere, and especially in post-COVID, the atmosphere was not that fun. In Los Angeles we won't have live reporters because it's too expensive to
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
18/05/2026
Despite a bumpy start to the year, the provider of event-production support and ...
18/05/2026
Daktronics has partnered with the University of North Carolina to manufacture and install 11 LED displays totaling more than 10,000 square feet and more than 14...
18/05/2026
CBS LA has announced a multi-year partnership with the Los Angeles Rams, covering exclusive local broadcasts of Rams preseason games, weekly year-round programm...
18/05/2026
Skyline Communications has announced an integration between its DataMiner xOps p...
18/05/2026
eCLUTCH, the hybrid esports platform powered by iKOMG, has announced an expansion of its distribution across Europe, MENA, Africa, and Asia, along with new cont...
18/05/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
18/05/2026
With 22 games this season, the production team looks forward to tweaking and enhancing the coverage
After 8,660 days off the air, the WNBA returned to NBC yest...
18/05/2026
(L-R) Midori Francis and Natalie Erika James attend the Saccharine premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at The Ray Theatre on January 22, 2026, in ...
18/05/2026
Last night, the Spotify Podcast Awards in Mexico returned to the country's capital. Now in its second year, the evening honors creators whose voices are hel...
18/05/2026
ZEN-Core synth goes mobile
Roland's powerful ZEN-Core software synthesizer has just been introduced to the iPad, offering a convenient entry point into ...
18/05/2026
Versatile new limiter plug-in announced
Based in Sheffield, UK, fedDSP offer a range of plug-ins that span the music production, live sound and high-end med...
18/05/2026
A new use for convolution?
Viiri Audio's debut plug-in aims to do something a little different with convolution processing, allowing users to adjust all...
18/05/2026
Delta Goodrem shines for SBS as more than 3.27 million Australians tune in for E...
18/05/2026
The Australian Defence Force uses L3Harris T4 and T7 robots for explosive ordnan...
18/05/2026
Continued investment across Europe and Germany is expanding local teams and improving access to stock, regional expertise, and specialist broadcast support.
CV...
18/05/2026
18 May 2026
Dubai and New York, May 18, 2026 - VEON Ltd. (NASDAQ: VEON), a glob...
18/05/2026
Monday 18 May 2026
Sky News offers ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes for just...
18/05/2026
Comscore March 2026 Consumer AI Chatbot Usage Rankings Show Claude Gaining Share OpenAI's ChatGPT maintains lead while Anthropic's Claude continues to c...
17/05/2026
Delta Goodrem's Eurovision Eclipse marks end of a stellar run
17 May, 2026
Media releases
Bulgaria wins Eurovision 2026
Relive every spellbinding mome...
17/05/2026
Back to All News
Oasis Premieres on Netflix June 19
Entertainment
17 May 2026
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Summer, sunshine, the beach, parties. T...
16/05/2026
Helps to deliver a clean, balanced midrange
Developed alongside Newfangled Audio, the latest plug-in in Eventide's software collection has been designed...
16/05/2026
Brings onboard stem rendering to RANE System One
Engine DJ have just released Engine DJ 5.0, a free update for their Engine DJ OS embedded hardware and Engi...
16/05/2026
Boris FX Continuum Pairs AI Precision and Advanced Creative Controls
Jessie Electa Petrov May 16, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic de...
16/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/05/2026
Seattle Sounders FC and Seattle Reign FC, in partnership with RAVE Foundation an...
15/05/2026
Dan Brumm has served as sound designer on Bluey, the Australian children's t...
15/05/2026
The Professional Audio Manufacturers Alliance (PAMA) and Shure Incorporated are accepting applications for the 6th annual Mark Brunner Professional Audio Schola...
15/05/2026
Netflix has announced an expanded NFL schedule for 2026 and beyond under a four-year partnership extension with the NFL through the 2029-30 season. Each season,...
15/05/2026
Ateme is supporting TVRI (Televisi Republik Indonesia) with a contribution and d...
15/05/2026
Concacaf has announced the launch of a new website and mobile app built on Deltatre's FORGE platform. Concacaf.com and the mobile app, available on iOS and ...
15/05/2026
Eutelsat has announced the launch of QBC Business Economic Channel by Qatar Media Corporation, broadcasting in 4K/UHD via Eutelsat's 7/8 West video neighbo...
15/05/2026
Major League Soccer has announced four original content series timed to the 2026...
15/05/2026
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) has announced it will exhibit and present at InfoComm 2026, taking place June 13-19 at the Las Vegas Convention Cente...
15/05/2026
InfoComm 2026 will take place June 13-19 (exhibits June 17-19) at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The show will include sessions and exhibits covering broadcas...
15/05/2026
Tracy McGrady's Ones Basketball League (OBL) and FuboTV Inc. have announced ...
15/05/2026
Disguise has partnered with Creative Technology (CT) to deliver visual playback ...
15/05/2026
Sony Electronics has announced two new products for professional imaging: the Alpha 7R VI full-frame mirrorless camera and the FE 100-400mm F4.5 GM OSS super-te...
15/05/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
15/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
15/05/2026
For sports organizations, the most valuable assets are often the most sensitive:...
15/05/2026
The NFL's broadcast partners released their 2026 regular season schedules ye...
15/05/2026
Besides drawing on experience with boxing, the production integrates specialty c...
Paris 2024: France T l visions on making the most of being the home turf rights holder with a plethora of commentators and ENG crews By Heather McLean 
