ARD and ZDF have secured the broadcasting rights to the Paralympics 2018 in Pyeongchang and 2020 in Tokyo. This was announced by the public broadcasters on Tuesday.
The agreement reached on the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) covers “exploitation rights for all distribution channels, including third party platforms”, according to a press release.
“At the Paralympics, the Olympic spirit is always particularly visible and palpable. This is why these competitions are inseparably part of the Olympic Games as a whole for ARD,”said Karola Wille, ARD chairman and director of MDR.
“The Paralympics have established themselves as an independent major event alongside the Olympic Games in recent years. We will be able to present the sporting and emotional highlights in 2018 and 2020 with dedicated reporting,”said ZDF Director-General Thomas Bellut.
This underscores the recognition that the Paralympic Games have received from ARD and ZDF,”said DBS President Friedhelm Julius Beucher:” It is a clear signal of appreciation for the impressive achievements of the Paralympic athletes.
Only in August, ARD and ZDF had reached an agreement with the rights holder Discovery on sublicensing live images from the 2018 to 2024 Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had sold the European Olympic rights to Discovery for 1.3 billion euros between 2018 and 2024 to Discovery, thus for the first time disregarding ARD and ZDF on the German market. Since then, the two channels had been trying to reach an agreement with Discovery.