The IOC needs more awareness

The media image of the International Olympic Committee in international TV news, 2011-2015

Rapperswil, July 27, 2015. When the members of the International Olympic Committee meet on July 31st in Kuala Lumpur they will have no reason for complacency. While the IOC enjoys a rather friendly image in international media, its visibility is strictly limited. This shows a long-time analysis by the Swiss Media Tenor International Institute.

“International sports organizations all operate now under the shadow of the FIFA scandal”, says Dr. Christian Kolmer, Head of Political Research at Media Tenor. As the IOC and other international sports bodies have generated only limited awareness in the international media arena, their campaigns for more transparency and against corruption went mostly unnoticed by international TV news.

“Although the IOC has improved its media image under the aegis of Thomas Bach, who followed on Jacques Rogge in 2013, the limited volume of reporting has not been sufficient to change the perception of the wider public”, explains Dr. Kolmer. The big news events of the Olympic Games in London 2012 and Sochi 2014 contributed little to the overall reporting about the IOC. While the news about the Olympics were positive for the IOC over the last 12 month, the IOC did not really profit from its main event. “Moreover, reporting about organizational issues in between was even less salient”, concludes Dr. Kolmer.

People in Western countries do no longer support the hosting of Olympic Games wholeheartedly, as has been shown by the hostile referendum in Bavaria in 2013, which terminated the application for the 2022 Winter Games. Powerful regimes in other parts of the world, on the other hand, continue to push their Olympic ambitions. “When only Beijing and Almaty bid for 2022, reminiscences of the 2014 games in Sochi will re-emerge – putting the spotlight on the propaganda value for undemocratic regimes”, warns Dr. Kolmer. “The media support for the IOC has been only conditional, and the organization needs to communicate in a more sustained and pro-active way in order to maintain this favorable image.”

For this report Media Tenor International has analyzed all 1,816,922 reports about protagonists from 21 main evening news programs in Asia, Europe, South Africa and the U.S. for the period from July 2011 to June 2015. All stories have been examined by human coders. Inter-coder reliability averaged 86% in the 2ndquarter of 2015.

For additional information, or to schedule an interview with Media Tenor, please contact:
Dr. Tobias Thomas, +41 79 255 8686, Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.