NBC: We're doing
the 2012 Olympics live
Every event from London will air live, either on TV or online
By Bill Cromwell
Aug 31, 2011
For the first time ever, viewers can watch all their favorite Summer Olympics events live as they happen.
NBC has decided to show every event from the 2012 Games in London live, whether on television or streaming video, reversing its longtime practice of saving the most anticipated events to air on tape delay during primetime.
The network's logic had always been that ratings would be higher if big events like gymnastics, swimming and track were not available before primetime, even if they had taken place hours before.
But in a world where broadcast television is no longer the only, or even often the first, option for news seekers, that approach no longer made sense.
Viewers know almost instantaneously the outcome of any competition that takes place during the day, whether by seeing the results Twitter or Facebook feeds, online stories or cable news features.
And so while NBC will continue to showcase next summer's big events in primetime as well, along with the usual mix of human-interest features, the network will also make them available in some form as they happen, most likely via an internet feed.
The switch reflects in part the changing leadership at NBC Sports, where longtime president Dick Ebersol stepped down earlier this year and Mark Lazurus took over.
Lazurus said yesterday, in introducing the new approach, that he believes viewers are more interested in immediacy than ever.
The change comes months after NBC secured rights to four more future Olympic broadcasts after bidding against Fox and ESPN/ABC, both of whom had pledged to show more events live than NBC.
As part of the deal, NBC promised to air every event live starting in 2014, but it decided that waiting two more years didn't make much sense.
Thus the network expects to air a jaw-dropping 275 hours of coverage each day from the Olympics across broadcast, cable and the internet.
Also yesterday, NBC said that "Today" executive producer Jim Bell will executive produce NBCUniversal coverage for the London Games next summer.
And the network is reportedly hiring Ebersol as a senior advisor, consulting on the Games and "Sunday Night Football," according to the New York Times.
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