Olympics providing venue for developing B.C. broadcast talent
Olympic Broadcasting Services to offer internships to up to 400 B.C. students. NBC may hire as many as 1,000 locals to prepare its broadcasts for the U.S. market.

Derrick Penner
Vancouver Sun

Monday, February 11, 2008

Official Olympic broadcasters will bring thousands of technicians to Vancouver for the 2010 Games, hire hundreds more locally and even create some technical talent to help televise the Olympics for a global audience of billions.

The International Olympic Committee's in-house producer of pooled competition footage at the Games will work with local colleges and universities to provide training to 600 students, Nancy Lee, chief operating officer for Olympic Broadcasting Services said Monday at a business workshop in Vancouver.

And of those students, Lee said 300 to 400 will be hired as a sort of internship at the 2010 Olympics.

"They're not likely to be camera No. 1 for hockey [broadcasts]," but OBS has a history of putting such students to work in technical capacities. And the initiative speaks to the needs broadcasters will have when they arrive in Vancouver, which won't be too far along the calendar.

Speaking Monday at the 2010 Commerce Centre's business summit at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, Brett Goodland, senior vice-president of strategic and business affairs at NBC Universal sports and Olympics, said his company will bring 1,800 people to Vancouver and hire as many as 1,000 local people to prepare its broadcasts for the U.S. market.

NBC will spend $40 million in the process on catering services, transportation, guides and a multitude of other services.