NBC Olympics Web Play Aims to Boost Primetime

NBC Universal will provide an unprecedented amount of online summer Olympics coverage to increase primetime viewership while keeping Web surfers engaged and aware of NBC’s Olympics’ brand.

Of the 2,900 hours of video coverage NBC plans to stream online from the Beijing summer games, 2,200 hours of it will be live on http://www.NBCOlympics.com. That scale of live coverage is intended to bridge the time gap between Beijing and the disparate U.S. time zones.

The third screen of mobile coverage on the new NBC Olympics Mobile Web site also becomes a factor, through a deal with AT&T that enables round-the-clock coverage of the games.

The ubiquitous nature of broadband technology is one factor in the equation, along with the quality of broadband video. And NBC research from prior Olympics in foreign venues indicates that access to online video and daytime coverage on NBC’s cable channels boosts the primetime audience.

“We know that television is still the big horse that’s going to cover things,” NBC spokesman Greg Hughes said. “Everything will point people to primetime.”

That’s vitally important to the network, since it committed a total of $5.7 billion in fees for its Olympics rights from 2000 through 2012—including a reported $894 million for the Beijing games, which will cost an estimated $125 million to produce.

The 2006 winter games in Torino, Italy, produced the lowest domestic ratings for an Olympics since 1988. But conversely, NBC’s Web site for the Torino games drew 338 million page views. This time around, the network hopes the page views fuel the primetime numbers.

The online video also lets NBC provide coverage of non-mainstream sports such as badminton and equestrian events, Hughes noted. NBC is also delivering a record 3,600 hours of coverage across all its networks, including USA, MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo.

While most of its online coverage will be live, it will confine live coverage of the popular track and field events—typically replete with winning results from U.S. athletes—for primetime viewing.

“They will be reserved for primetime when we can aggregate the greatest possible audience,” Hughes said.

The advent of mobile coverage via AT&T phones could be an intriguing factor in building interest among the prized younger audience likely to access video and results that way. Content will also be available on www.att.net and AT&T’s U-Verse VOD TV channel. “

It’s basically the Olympics delivered to customers on the three screens they use,” Dan York, head of AT&T content and programming, said.

But NBC is counting on the accessibility of Olympics content on all those branded video platforms to push its all-important primetime numbers above the numbing overabundance of reality shows on competing networks.

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