Discovery Communications

Discovery reveals Olympic leadership team

Eli Bremmer

Discovery Communications has revealed a number of appointments at Eurosport who will support the company’s Olympic Games Strategy.

In June it was announced that Discovery had been awarded the European TV and multiplatform broadcast rights to the 2018-2024 Olympic Games.

The coverage will be overseen by an Olympic Games leadership organisation team. Three of the five team members were announced this week, with Jean-Thierry Augustin leading Commercialisation, David Schafer heading up Operations and Planning and Géraldine Filiol directing Olympic Relations and Coordination.

How Discovery Communications conquered the world

David Zaslav (Credit: Paul Hampartsoumian)

Since taking command at Discovery Communications in 2007, David Zaslav has conquered the world. The US giant now operates in 230 countries – and is still expanding.

Eurosport was added to its roster of channels in 2014 and the rights to the Olympics Games nabbed this summer.

“We are a global company and more global than any other media company in the world. We have more employees outside the US than we do in the US. We make more money outside the US,” said Zaslav.

In pictures: RTS Cambridge Convention 2015

The RTS Cambridge Convention 2015 took place from Wednesday 16 to Friday 18 September, seeing senior leaders from the television industry on both sides of the Atlantic converge on the city. 

The topics covered over the three days ranged from the importance of the BBC worldwide, to a debate about the lessons learnt from the General Election 2015, to the continued challenge that the television industry faces with the rise of video content emerging on digital platforms.