YouTube Will Show Beijing Olympics in Africa, Asia, Middle East

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Google’s YouTube are partnering to broadcast the Beijing Olympics 2008 to Africa, Asia and Middle Eastern countries.

YouTube will show daily highlights and news segments of the 2008 Beijing Olympics to Nigeria, India and 75 other countries, where broadcasters don’t have exclusive arrangement with the IOC. These highlights however won’t be available in countries, such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan and European countries, in which companies have broadcasting rights for the Games. Timo Lumme, director of TV and marketing services at the IOC told the Guardian:

"The IOC's priority is to ensure that as many people as possible get to experience the magic of the Olympic games."

NBC, which is the exclusive broadcaster for the United States, will show 2,200 hours of live events across 25 sports on NBCOlympics.com, but content will only be available for the U.S. because of broadcasters' restrictions from other countries. The Olympic video segments will begin Aug. 6 and will air throughout the games' 17-day run. Google might create a separate Olympics channel, and I will update the link as they become available.