Oyunchimeg Demchig, 

CEO of The Mongolian Public Media Content Foundation

Before you start reading further, please be aware that this is not a trumpist rant. There is a heating debate running on social media about the third biggest international sports events of the year: The Paralympics. The word “Paralympic” derives from the Greek preposition “para” (beside or alongside) and the word “Olympic”. Its meaning is that Paralympics are the parallel Games to the Olympics and illustrates how the two movements exist side-by-side. According to various internet sources: “The Paralympics has grown from a small gathering of British World War II veterans in 1948 to become one of the largest international sporting events by the early 21st century, where thousands of athletes with various impediments compete in the Olympic spirit”. Why are the Mongolians deprived of witnessing the celebrations of human beings breaking stereotypes that we grew up with? Why is there no coverage on Mongolian media of these events? Why can't we see our athletes competing in these games? Some people say it is bad intent from the private broadcasters, some say it is the lack of interest from  private advertisers. I have a different opinion. The fact that we cannot watch the Paralympics on Mongolian TV is a barometer for the state of our media, including the state of the MNB (The Mongolian National Broadcaster). If private media chose not to negotiate the Paralympics broadcasting rights, it shows how little they are interested in going beyond serving their owners interests, politicians and commercial entities. It provides even a stronger argument for people’s taxes to be channeled to supporting a public broadcaster/media. A true public broadcaster would not have thought twice to put on the yearly programming agenda this kind of coverage, fulfilling its mission to serve all the audiences indiscriminately. And this brings me to the next question: why MNB, our designated Public Broadcaster, is not broadcasting it? Well, I guess because nobody “ordered” it. If no-one is paying, if no-one in the government is ordering, they are not doing it. And if anyone dares to argue that no broadcasters from abroad pay any attention to the Paralympics just take this: Tokyo 2020 Paralympics set to break all broadcast viewing records around the world. NHK, the leading Japanese public broadcaster will air 540 hours of the games, NBC, a leading private TV network in the US will be showing more than 1,200 hours, in Indonesia, a private media conglomerate will show over 120 hours. According to the International Paralympic Committee: “More broadcasters, increased coverage levels and more live sport sees an estimated cumulative TV audience of 4.25 billion people likely to watch the Games”. That’s more than the 4,1 billion people that tuned into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Unfortunately not us Mongolians. What a shame!

• For a complete list of broadcasters that air the Parlaympics read this article:

Where to watch Tokyo 2020 Games | International Paralympic Committee

• For more information on the audience estimation of the Paralympics and for first hands facts quoted above please read this article:

Tokyo 2020 Paralympics set to break all broadcast viewing records | International Paralympic Committee