Australian swimmer James Magnussen smiles for the camera during the London Olympics. An Olympic TV channel will launch in April, 2016, in time for the Rio Games.

The IOC plans to launch its digital Olympic TV channel in April 2016, just a few months before the games in Rio de Janeiro.

The channel is hiring a staff of almost 100 people based in Madrid to produce programmes and features on Olympic athletes and sports to accompany footage of past games, Olympic Broadcasting Services CEO Yiannis Exarchos said on Wednesday (Thursday NZT).

"It's a pretty aggressive plan, it's a pretty optimistic plan but we live in the Olympic world," he said at the SportAccord convention in Sochi.

While details of likely revenue and costs remain sparse, Exarchos said the channel would secure a return on the US$600 million investment in 10 years.

There will be a strong focus on original programming to ensure the channel shows more than Olympic reruns, he said.

"We will not endeavour to be a traditional sports channel, rather we want to be a channel about sports that takes a different approach," Exarchos said.

The channel was a key part of IOC President Thomas Bach's "Olympic Agenda 2020" reform programme. He said the channel was needed to engage with younger viewers and promote Olympic sports that get little publicity in the years between the games.

The channel was approved by the full International Olympic Committee in December in Monaco.

The project came in for criticsm on Monday as part of a stinging attack on the IOC by SportAccord president Marius Vizer, who said the channel lacked a clear business plan.