Watching the Paralympic Games on France Television

IT will be possible to follow the Paralympic Games from London, which run from August 29 to September 9, on France Television but you'll have to search around a bit.

The opening ceremony takes place today, with the main competition starting tomorrow featuring wheelchair basketball, archery and powerlifting amongst the many sports on offer.

France Television will not be offering the same wall-to-wall coverage it provided for the Olympics, but the opening and closing ceremonies will be on France Ô, which is free to watch and can usually be found on channel 19 of the TNT freeview style service in France.

France 3 will be the main home of the television coverage of the Paralympic Games with daily round-up programmes being broadcast at 17h during the week and 15h on Saturday.

Each evening France 3 will also offer up a look back at the day later in the evening.

If you want to watch live competition then it is to the internet you will have to turn, with the francetvsport.fr promising to show the live feeds from venues, without any commentary.

There was a very good iPad app from France Television for the Olympics which used the live feeds, however there was no mention this morning when I checked the app of anything similar for those who want to follow the Paralympic athletes.

Considering the level of interest and support the Olympics received earlier this month, not only in the UK but in France and elsewhere, it seems a missed opportunity by France Television to not offer up more inspiring stories of athletic endeavour.

Comments

[Sarah]

Apparently it could have been worse. See this mail I got this morning from change.org:

Les Jeux Paralympiques mieux couverts par France TV

Benoît, sportif et fan de handisport, était choqué de constater que France Télévisions ne prévoyait aucun programme à heure de grande écoute pour couvrir les Jeux Paralympiques de Londres. Il a alors lancé une pétition demandant à France Télévisions de donner à ces Jeux la place médiatique qu'ils méritent. En quelques jours, plus de 17 000 personnes ont signé sa pétition. France Télévisions y a répondu directement et a modifié sa grille pour donner plus de visisibilité à ces Jeux.

[Craig McGinty]

It is disappointing when you consider that Channel 4 in the UK is showing 500 hours of live coverage from the Paralympics.