Having back-to-back Games is unique in modern times – what does it mean for Discovery?
The Olympic Games is a huge undertaking for Discovery – probably the biggest single undertaking we do from a live production view. And what people don’t really know is that we are broadcasting in 50 different markets in 19 different languages and we are localising the content in 11 different markets.

It’s a huge commitment of time, effort and resources of Discovery and after the Tokyo success, all the great content we produced and all the stories that we told, we’ve learnt a lot. We had 175 million different Europeans watching our coverage and it was amazing. The numbers we saw from PyeongChang was a huge uplift and to be able to do it six months on from the Tokyo Games is unique, a challenge for sure, but also has a number of opportunities.

A major development for Tokyo was offering all of the Olympics on discovery+, Discovery’s global entertainment streaming service, what did you learn from that?
One of the highlights for Discovery for the Tokyo Games was the launch of discovery+, such an important digital product for our business. And using the Olympic Games to really announce in a way the introduction of sport onto that product, the Olympics did an amazing job and really got the product into the hands of a number of consumers.

When we made the decision to put sport on discovery+, we saw people staying for longer. We saw people buy more annual passes than monthly passes. We saw when people engaged with the entertainment content as well as the sports content, they were four times more likely to renew with us. So the introduction of sport onto our general entertainment product has been hugely successful and we hope to continue to improve those numbers as we continue to get from a broad audience for the Olympic Games into Beijing.

Human Rights concerns in relation to China have been raised and reported. As an Olympics broadcaster, what is your view? How do you see such topics being covered in coverage of the Games?
There is no doubt it [human rights in China] is a massively important issue. Discovery is really focussed on social issues and we’ve made a big commitment to diversity and inclusion within our own organisation, it’s not a topic that we want to shy away from, we’re going to address it. But we’re also a sports broadcaster and we will also be focussed on athlete performances and what’s going on on the big stage and doing the best we can to show those stories. Hopefully the Olympics should shine a light on that and bring all the Olympics back to a really interesting story for the consumer.

Tokyo 2020 saw record digital engagement and even more people reached in Europe. How will you judge success for Beijing 2022?
Firstly, Covid is still with us and we want to make sure our people attending the Games, everyone that is going to the Winter Games are healthy and safe. The number one priority is keeping everyone healthy and safe. Certainly to improve some of those stories, reach and engagement we’ve seen on our platforms, we’d certainly like to make huge improvements from PyeongChang.

I think we’ve got the tools to do that – great talent, great stories and the markets where we’re in we’ve got markets to do that. And this is a precursor to Paris 2024. Beijing will be exciting but Paris will be our home Olympics and really exciting.

Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 begins on Wednesday 2 February with coverage of every medal from every event LIVE on discovery+ (selected markets) and Eurosport