Australia is set to receive their biggest coverage of the Winter Olympics yet, which get underway with the Opening Ceremony at 10pm (AEDT) on Friday, February 9. This is The Roar‘s guide to streaming the event online and watching them on TV.
Following the Opening Ceremony, competition will continue until the 25th of February with 102 events in seven different sports set to be contested in Pyeongchang. The city is located in South Korea and it will be the first time the nation has hosted the Winter Olympics.
It also marks a big occasion for Australians. For the first time, the Winter Olympics will be held in a timezone which suits viewers – i.e. not overnight – and luckily, there is going to be wall-to-wall coverage provided on free-to-air television.
With some medal hopes thrown in, Australia are looking to have one of their most successful campaigns in history.
The 2018 Winter Olympics are being broadcast exclusively by Channel Seven in Australia. They have signed a contract which saw them provide the most in-depth coverage of an Olympics games in the nation’s history at Rio 2016, before also having the rights of the 2018 Winter Olympics, 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast and 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
The deal sees them retain all media rights, including pay TV and digital.
Channel Seven’s current guide indicates they will have at least one channel dedicated to the Winter Olympics for most of the day. It’s best to check your local guides though, as they will work other programmes such as Sunrise and the news into their daily schedule.
Similar to the 2016 Rio Olympics, the easiest way to stream the Winter Olympics will be through Channel Seven’s official Olympics app – OlympicsOn7.
Like during Rio, the app itself will be free to use, however, you will need to pay $14.99 to access the complete range content. Paying that fee will also allow you to watch events in HD and will also reportedly cut down on the number of advertisements you see.
As with any Channel Seven content, you can also simply stream their television broadcasts via 7plus or through the 7plus app. This option is purely a stream of their television broadcast, however, and offers you no option to choose what events to watch.
Edward Kelly
Roar Guru
I've ended up watching what I wanted to on the CBC (Canadian) stream for free through my VPN (that I have anyway). Very few ads and free. Makes me think Seven just don't get the modern world hiding all the sports behind pay walls that only suckers pay.
Ric
Guest
I agree with Edward its not the Olympics is just how the Australians perform. The commentators talk rubbish and we never see the full true event. Lets show the full event and see all competitors perform and then lets have an unbiased commentary. With the poor broadcast maybe watching Frozen on a DVD is a better option.
Edward Kelly
Roar Guru
Few years ago I paid to watch the winter Olympics and it was great, multi channels and all live sports covered by expert commentators (I think it was ESPN). This time we will get the dreadful Australia centric seven coverage and will probably miss out on some great competition to be shown replays of aussie athletes coming 12th, being interviewed by commentators that know nothing about the sport, just that the aussie athlete did a personal best.