Seven’s Olympic coverage could change the way we watch sport on our screens

The Seven Network has announced it will offer a paid subscription service via an app as part of its Rio Olympics coverage. This will make Seven the first free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster in Australia to charge for broadcasting sport. Whilst this might well be “the most technologically advanced coverage of any event with its all-encompassing coverage”, adding a subscription service will have massive implications for FTA television more broadly. In a time when free-to-air broadcasters are losing audiences and reporting financial losses ….is a subscription service the answer?