Centralisation, Professionalisation, and Globalisation: A Historical Analysis of the Olympic Games Coverage and Broadcasting in China

The Olympic Games are widely recognised as one of the most significant global media events. Olympic broadcasting goes far beyond the mere transmission of sporting competitions—it plays a crucial role in audience expansion, technological innovation, and multi-platform dissemination. This article adopts a qualitative archival approach to examine the evolution of Olympic coverage and broadcasting in China, from China’s initial engagement with the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The findings indicate that this historical trajectory reflects shifting dynamics between central and provincial media under conditions of power centralisation, the measured integration of traditional and digital platforms amid media liberalisation, and national television’s strategic deployment of international Olympic signal production to project China’s technological soft power on the global stage. This study offers a comprehensive understanding of the transformation of China’s Olympic broadcasting within the broader frameworks of media reform, state intervention, and technological development in China.