The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, opening today, is set to be the biggest ever broadcast on Channel 4 with over 1,300 hours of live sport airing for free across Channel 4, More4, Channel 4 Streaming and Channel 4 Sport’s YouTube.
Paris 2024 is set to be Channel 4’s most accessible Paralympic Games to date. All content will be broadcast with subtitles, live peak time sport on Channel 4 will have closed audio description, while live sport on Channel 4 every afternoon during the Paralympics will include BSL live signing.
Coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games is produced for Channel 4 by Whisper and features multiple studios and locations across the city – including at the Stade De France, La Défense Arena, the Athletes’ Village, ParalympicsGB House and the Pont Alexandre III – capturing both the majesty of Paris and the elite sporting action.
For the first time, our remote galleries and back-of-house production team will be based in Cardiff where a new state-of-the-art facility is being built for the Games to house around 200 people working on Channel 4’s Paralympics coverage, including 16 disabled people from the broadcaster’s Paralympics Production Trainee Scheme. The 2024 Paris Paralympics will be the biggest ever sports production in Wales and it is hoped the new, fully accessible hub will leave a lasting legacy for the nation.
The Opening and Closing Ceremonies are to be simulcast on 4Seven and Channel 4 Streaming with BSL and open descriptive commentary. Plus, all episodes of The Last Leg and Daily Highlights will be simulcast on 4Seven and Channel 4 Streaming with BSL live signing. Daily Highlights on Channel 4 will also have live closed audio description.
Over the 12-day event, coverage starts at breakfast time and follows all the medals and stories of the day until the action concludes, broadcasting across two channels and Channel 4 Streaming, plus every televised moment of the Paralympics streaming on Channel 4 Sport’s YouTube channel, with up to 18 concurrent streams. For the first time since London 2012, the key finals and podium moments will take place in primetime viewing as we bring the UK together to celebrate Paralympic sport. C’est magnifique!
Channel 4 has teamed up with ParalympicsGB to launch a major, on-air campaign to encourage disabled people across the UK to take up a sport.
The campaign runs across Channel 4 channels throughout its extensive coverage of the Paralympic Games and will drive viewers to the Every Body Moves initiative – a project run by ParalympicsGB to match disabled people with a local sports club.
Coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games on Channel 4 will be interrupted at least four times a day to highlight the initiative through an onscreen QR code that, when scanned on a smartphone links directly to sports clubs in a viewer’s local area. As the QR code appears, there will also be studio discussions about the project and features profiling the work and participants.
Pippa Considine
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