Where to watch 2024 Paris Olympics including opening ceremony

The 2024 Paris Olympics will soon be underway but viewing every glorious victory, close call and emotional moment may prove trickier than previous years.

No, it’s not due to a difficult timezone issue. This year, the Olympics take place in the French capital which means the action is only an hour ahead of British Summer Time. Instead, it’s down to streaming and broadcasting issues, with the BBC’s options becoming more limited than they were in years gone by.

In 2015, Warner Bros. Discovery bought the European rights to show the Olympics. As a result, it can air as much of the event as it likes across as many channels as they please, something the BBC could previously do.

Instead, the broadcaster must sub-licence its coverage from Discovery+ which means that its offering will be a bit different for this year's event.

Here’s everything you need to know about how to watch the 2024 Paris Olympics.

When do the Paris Olympics take place?

The Paris Olympics starts on Friday, 26 July with the official opening ceremony set to take place from 6.30pm UK time.

The start of this year’s games will mark a noticeable change from previous opening ceremonies, with the event housed alongside the River Seine instead of in a sporting arena. Artists including Lady Gaga and Celine Dion have been rumoured to perform, but organisers have yet to confirm their involvement.

After the opening ceremony is out of the way, the games will officially begin with various sporting events scheduled to take place until Sunday, 11 August. When that date arrives, so will the Olympics’ closing ceremony which takes over Paris’s Stade de France from 8pm BST.

How can I watch the Olympics in the UK?

Despite what all the channel-changing chatter above suggests, the BBC will still be your home for Olympic content in the UK but it’ll take a different shape from what you may be used to.

Essentially, the broadcaster will have events available on one network-broadcast TV channel and a second broadcast stream at any given moment. This allows the BBC to focus on showing viewers the two most exciting events on at any one time. What’s more, as its own website highlights, thanks to the scheduling of this year’s games, viewers are unlikely to miss any key moments.

Live coverage will start at 8am on BBC One and stay with viewers until the news at 10 starts later that evening. At this time, coverage will switch over to BBC Two where viewers can continue to get their Olympic fix. The type of daily coverage fans can expect will range from both live events and also packages that feature the best-bits from each day.

In addition, a round-up show will air at 10.40pm each night on BBC Two. Meanwhile, the iPlayer’s Olympics Extra channel will feature live content from 8am to 11pm daily.

The most noticeable changes come into play when looking for Olympic specifics.

For example, if you’re really into one particular niche sport but it isn’t the most popular event of the day, you might not find it on the BBC or be able to watch it live. There’s always a chance it’ll pop up in the broadcaster’s highlights or daily scheduling but if watching your favourite is a dealbreaker, you’ll want to head over to Discovery+ or Eurosport.

Speaking of which, those who have access to the Discovery+ app or UK Eurosport channels can enjoy everything the Paris Olympics has to offer across their extensive live coverage. Here, sports fans can watch almost 4,000 hours of as-it-happens action across Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2 between 7am and 10.30pm daily.

These Eurosport channels can be accessed via Sky, TNT or Virgin TV packages or through linear TV. Meanwhile, the Discovery+ app goes even further, featuring live events across 55 different channels.

Who is hosting the BBC Olympics coverage?

Heading up BBC Sport’s TV coverage are presenters Clare Balding, Gabby Logan, Hazel Irvine, Isa Guha, Jeanette Kwakye, JJ Chalmers and Mark Chapman.

Joining the studio guest line-up are Dame Laura Kenny, Great Britain’s most decorated female Olympian, and First Dates’s Fred Sirieix, whose daughter Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix will be aiming to win diving gold for Great Britain.

Sir Chris Hoy, Dame Denise Lewis, Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Kate Richardson-Walsh, Beth Tweddle, Dame Katherine Grainger, Mark Foster, Michael Johnson, Nicola Adams and Rebecca Adlington are also part of the BBC Sport team in Paris.

Radio 5 Live’s live coverage will be presented by Adrian Chiles, Mark Chapman, Tony Livesey, Eleanor Oldroyd and Kelly Cates.

Olympians Victoria Pendleton, Louis Smith, Steve Parry, Karen Pickering and Jess Eddie are among the sporting stars providing insight and analysis.

The 2024 Paris Olympics take place between Friday, 26 July and Sunday, 11 August.

This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/how-to-watch-paris-olympics-uk-tv-channel-145703573.html