You can't compete with Olympics

They know full well that the Nine network - and its relevant local affiliates - have the rights to the Paris Olympics. They also know that they themselves can't air any footage of the Olympics.

And they also know that for two weeks from the end of this month, no-one will be paying any attention to them.

The only reason many will have to touch the TV remote is to turn the TV on at day one of the Olympics, to switch between the various Nine digital channels to watch your favourite niche Games sport and then to turn the TV off again after the closing ceremony.

Now is not the time to release a big, expensive drama, because no-one will care. Well, except the 76 people across the country who are so opposed to sport that they can't even bring themselves to watch the Olympics.

Even those clowns who think using the phrase "sportsball" is funny (A friendly tip: it's not funny and makes you sound like an intolerant fool) will be watching the Games.

And, while those 76 people will be looking for something else to watch, they're not going to do much for your ratings.

But this hasn't stopped the ABC from launching a new series smack just days into the Olympic period.

Maybe because it's about sports, they figured Fifteen-Love (with a title like that, don't make me tell you which sport it is) would go perfectly during the Games.

According to the program description, it's about a teen prodigy who suffers a career-ending injury and, five years later, accuses her coach of sexual abuse.

A UK series, it got good reviews when it debuted over there last year but is likely to get lost during the Olympics. Or maybe the ABC is hoping people will binge it on iView in a few weeks.

The other option for those free-to-air networks left out of the Games hoopla is to try and find a show that can ride the Olympic wave without treading on Nine's exclusive deal.

That's the way SBS has gone this week with The Secrets of Mt Olympus.

The connection is the idea that the first Olympics were held on the mountain ages and ages ago.

But don't watch this expecting any real connection between the Games to be established; this doco is all about trying to find a scientific explanation for supposed supernatural goings-on at the peak.

At least I think that's what they're doing; to be honest, it was all so very dull I couldn't even get halfway through the one-hour documentary.

All eyes will be on Nine, which will be cashing in big time with wall-to-wall coverage across its main channel and Gem - and all the stuff will likely be available to stream on 9Now too.

And we will be watching all of it; even the sports we don't care about in the years between Olympics (why, hello there, ping pong).

Also we'll magically become instant experts on all of them.

Other Nine shows will also get the Games vibe. Today and A Current Affair will be broadcasting from Paris - though why a show about our own shonks, charlatans and rip-off artists is being beamed from the capital of France is a bit of a mystery.