Channel 4 viewers and Paralympics fans were left furious on Wednesday night and claimed the broadcaster was being “disrespectful” to those taking part in the tournament after they continued to show advert breaks throughout the ceremony.
Much like the Olympics opening ceremony, around 4,400 athletes made their way along the Champs-Elysees to Place de la Concorde, with the evening’s event taking place outside of a stadium for the first time.
Approximately 65,000 people attended the opening and watched on as planes from the Patrouille de France released blue, white and red smoke into the skies above Paris.
However, viewers watching from home were left disappointed that coverage of the parade was interrupted by regular adverts, meaning several teams were bypassed during the opening ceremony.
Taking to their X accounts, one fumed: “I know it’s Channel 4 but is it really impossible to show the Paralympics opening ceremony without interruptions from adverts? I’m finding them intrusive and disrespectful.”
Another said: “You call yourself the home of the Paralympics yet you have adverts during the parade at the opening ceremony. That is such an insult to the athletes we are not seeing. Not impressed.”
“You’d think Channel 4 could bypass the adverts for the Paralympics opening ceremony. I just think there’s a time and place. Not in the middle of the flag parade for instance,” someone else fumed before many others slammed the “blatant disrespect” to the Paralympians involved.
When contacted about the backlash the broadcaster had received, a spokesperson for Channel 4 said: “The Paris 2024 Paralympic Opening Ceremony is a live event taking place over a long period of time.
“As much as we’d like to show every moment, we are a commercially funded public service broadcaster and advertising allows us to invest in events such as the Paralympics at no cost to our audiences.
“This year, we are broadcasting more than 1,300 hours of live sport for free, across Channel 4, More4, Channel 4 Streaming and Channel 4 Sport’s YouTube.”
Channel 4 retained UK broadcast rights for the Paris Paralympics after being hailed for its coverage of the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games, with IPC president Andrew Parsons noting: “With London 2012 and Rio 2016, Channel 4 created a blueprint for how a commercial broadcaster can raise the profile of Paralympic sport and its athletes to new levels.
“They have reached record audiences, in particular young people, identified and developed some fantastic new presenting talent and played a significant role in delivering seismic shifts in attitudes and perceptions towards people with an impairment in the UK.
“They have committed to build on this fantastic work over the next four years and continue to innovate within Paralympic broadcasting and we look forward to working with them as they help contribute to the IPC’s vision of enabling Paralympic athletes to achieve sporting excellence to inspire and excite the world.”
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The 11-day Paralympic Games began on Thursday with athletes from 184 delegations competing across 22 sports for a total of 549 gold medals.
Before the Paralympians made their entrance Canadian musician Chilly Gonzales and French singer Christine and the Queens performed on the main stage.
