Paris 2024 Olympic Games: how the largest live TV coverage “ever” will be organized for the opening ceremony ?

La cérémonie d’ouverture des Jeux de Paris 2024 sera la plus grande couverture TV en direct “jamais réalisée”. MAXPPP

Unprecedented, complex and ambitious, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris on the Seine, on July 26, will be the largest live television coverage "ever achieved" by the audiovisual subsidiary of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), responsible for production.

This show lasting 3 hours 45 minutes, which will be held for the first time outside a stadium and will see delegations of athletes parade over 6 km aboard 85 boats, "will be the largest production we have ever done in terms of equipment and broadcast resources" , told AFP Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).

On the banks and bridges of the French capital, some 3,000 dancers and actors will present twelve artistic paintings, which will celebrate the athletes, tell "a story of what’ is France", a country of "diversity", and will celebrate "the whole world gathered", according to the designer of the ceremony, Thomas Jolly, whom AFP has met several times in recent weeks.< /p>

JO : après les tribunes et les grands écrans, les caméras de télévision sont désormais installées sur les quais de Seine pour la cérémonie d’ouverture ! pic.twitter.com/dNNoqxBbje

— Benoît Daragon (@bendarag) July 17, 2024

An IOC subsidiary created in 2001, OBS is responsible for filming the Games and providing images to television channels around the world who have purchased the broadcast rights.

At the heart of its immense layout on the Seine (from the Austerlitz Bridge to the Trocadéro, where the finale will take place) and the main monuments nearby (Notre-Dame, Louvre, Musée d’ Orsay…), more than 100 camera systems, including robotic ones, and cranes will be deployed.

More than 200 smartphones will also be installed on the boats to offer a perspective "unique" from the ceremony to the billion viewers who are expected to watch it live through the point of view of the 6,000 to 7,000 athletes who will participate in the ceremonial parade.

"Three times" Tokyo

"To give you an idea of ​​the scale of the project, this represents three times the number of cameras used during the Olympic ceremony for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (in 2021, Editor's note). In addition, we will have eight drones, three helicopters and four custom-made stabilized boats, equipped with specially designed camera systems", details OBS.

To provide images to televisions around the world, the IOC subsidiary has set up its headquarters at the International Broadcast Center, and its giant control rooms in the vast Bourget exhibition center (Seine-Saint -Denis), north of Paris. To route the signal from its numerous cameras to the heart of its reactor, OBS will rely on the telecom networks of the historic French operator Orange.

🔥La cérémonie d'ouverture des JO est le secret le mieux gardé de #paris2024

👀 Nous vous dévoilons dans ce reportage certains mystères : danseurs, costumes, thème du spectacle. Notre caméra est la première à vous montrer ces images.#jeuxolympiques @infofrance2 @franceinfo pic.twitter.com/n8efYdVjnS

— Matthieu Boisseau (@MattBoisseau) June 25, 2024

For national television channels, "not possible" to set up a system of this magnitude, "so there is no frustration for us", assures AFP Gilles Silard, director of sports production for the public group France Télévisions, official broadcaster of the Games and therefore client of OBS.

"We cannot replace international production because it’s what knows exactly where to put its cameras, from one shot to another time in such and such a place, because such and such a thing is happening", he adds. And "we don't have the means or resources to film everything there is to film. A (competition) site is an entire day of work, so we would need to multiply our teams by 20 or 30."

Also read: Paris 2024 Olympic Games: the armies mobilized to secure the opening ceremony on the Seine

"The contribution of France TV is more the incarnation, that is to say that we , on each of the sites, we will put commentators and consultants who will decipher, who will comment on these images", concludes Gilles Silard.