The event - to be attended by Thomas Bach, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President, who will make a speech, along with Jacques Rogge, his predecessor - includes contributions by Yiannis Exarchos, chief executive of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), and Caroline Rowland and Sergey Miroshnichenko, directors of the last two Official Olympic Games films.

Broadcasting has long been of critical importance to the Olympic Movement since, in addition to making the Games available to a global audience of billions and capturing them for posterity, broadcasting rights fees are the Movement's biggest income source.

This, moreover, is set to be a landmark year for Olympic broadcasting, following the recent approval, as part of the Agenda 2020 process, of the launch of a digital Olympic Channel.

One hope for the new channel - whose operational costs have been projected at €490 million (£385 million/$600 million) over the 2015-2021 period - is that it will help draw more people to Olympic-related content year-round, rather than just at Games-time.

Former International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge is due to attend the Museum event ©Getty Images


The exhibition will also highlight work undertaken by the IOC in recent years to restore and digitalise its audiovisual assets; these should provide an important resource for the new channel, just as they have for the renovated museum, whose highly effective showcasing of audiovisual material is quickly apparent to any visitor.

According to the IOC, the Museum is to be awarded a special prize by the International Council of Museums International Committee for Audiovisual and New Technologies of Image and Sound, in recognition of the integration and innovative use of audiovisual archives and multimedia technologies in its permanent exhibitions.

The introductory event, which is by invitation only, is entitled Witnessing a Century of Sport and Culture and takes place tomorrow and Tuesday (February 17).

The exhibition - entitled The Olympic Games: Behind the Screen - is scheduled to run from February 19 until January 26, 2016.

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