During yesterday afternoon’s Econsultancy Roundtable at the Globe Theater, I was seated next to Alex Balfour, head of new media for London2012.com, the committee that is organizing the 2012 Summer Games in London. (See info about the London 2012 Open Weekend on July 24-26.)

Midway through our session, the discussion turned to media coverage of the Olympics. I asked Alex about the tensions between the contractual rights demanded by traditional media and the burgeoning coverage by grassroots media publishers — conflicts that seem to crop up at every Olympics.

During the 2008 Beijing Games, bloggers were upset over NBC’s attempts to quelch any online video coverage of same-day events. If memory serves, NBC served YouTube with scores of takedown notices to remove amateur video coverage of competitive events, and there was even a decree at one point that cell phones would be banned from the stadium.

In 2012, what happens when big media bump up against sharing culture?

Alex obviously doesn’t speak for NBC but suggested their No. 1 concern is around live moving images. The network is not so much bothered about people capturing images. “We wouldn’t and can’t stop anyone from generating or creating content at the event,” he said. It’s likely that NBC will again work with YouTube to remove content that it believes conflicts with its contractual rights.

Is live streaming an option?

I asked what harm would result with live streaming — something Robert Scoble is doing on the trip with Kyte and Howard Rheingold is doing with Qik. Alex said supporting 80,000 people who want to stream media would present insuperable technical barriers. (That was a politic answer. I’ll guess that Olympic authorities will take proactive steps to prevent any live video streaming during the Games.)

Alex made the good point that for the vast majority of people, “you want the best footage from the best equipment,” and NBC will be generating 5,000 hours of footage during the Games — that’s six months of television viewing if you were to watch it all.

Balfour’s team is now working to incorporate publically generated and approved content at 80 venues in 30 city centers. “We’ll pull content into physical spaces, into screens of all sizes, embedding it into architecture,” he said.

The changing mediasphere

Alex also told the story of how some of the young adults he encounters are told of the days not long ago when you had to go to the TV and radio stations and newspapers to try to have your voice heard. “They look at you in disbelief. The Internet gives everyone the ability to self-organize — everyone has permission to speak. They may not be heard, but it may happen.”

He also said of his organizing committee: “Our role is to act as a catalyst, not merely to stage an event.”

Interesting factoid: Alex pointed out that the television rights for the 2016 Olympics will be sold this fall before the television networks know which city — Chicago, Toyko or Rio de Janeiro (or possibly Madrid) — will host the Games.

Related:
• See other images of Alex Balfour I’ve taken

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