Broadcasters Find Perfect Platform

By Cui Xiaohuo (China Daily)

Unauthorized Olympic media, which are ineligible to broadcast from within the Olympic Green, have found an enviable alternative.

"Because we don't have the right to broadcast (from inside Olympic Green), we had to find somewhere else," Paul Lockyer, who will cover his third Olympics as a reporter for ABC TV Australia, said.

The company will be based at the 192-m tall Pangu Plaza, which overlooks the Olympic Green and is across the street from the Water Cube. It will broadcast from two camera positions inside the building, one of which it will share with others.

The property is so well sought-after that some Chinese tabloids have claimed billionaire Bill Gates has rented a rooftop courtyard there for 100 million yuan a year.

Getty Images, the Games' official photo agency, will be based at Pangu, from where it will cover the opening and closing ceremonies and the marathon, which starts at Tian'anmen and ends at the Bird's Nest.

Along with another building east of the Olympic Green, the plaza will host 34 TV networks from around the world, including ESPN, CNN and the BBC. Other networks, including the European Broadcasting Union, Australia's Channel 7 and China's CCTV 9, have set up studios facing the building.

Doug Fraser, managing director of Seven Network Asia Ltd, said: "This will be the biggest independent broadcast base (outside the Olympic Green) of any Olympics."

Gavin Romanis, CEO of Seven Network Asia, said the area will be home to broadcasters from Africa, Brazil, Mexico, America and Southeast Asia.

"The view is superb in the evening," Huang Junjie, an executive producer with Guangdong TV, which has an independent studio on the 10th floor of the plaza, said.

"The view here is better than from the east side of the Olympic Green, with the Bird's Nest, Water Cube and the Ling Long Pagoda."

Guangdong TV is one of just a handful of domestic networks wealthy enough to be able to afford its own studio at Pangu.

"When we decided to come here, we had to think beyond the cost," Huang, who also covered the 2004 Athens Olympics and 2006 Asian Games, said.