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NBC Strengthens Online Coverage for Beijing Olympic Games

Posted on: Sunday, 29 June 2008, 17:14 CDT

In addition to 1,400 hours of television network coverage of this year’s Beijing Olympic Games, NBC will offer more than 2,200 live hours of games available for online viewing, plus live blogging, daily recaps, 3,000 hours of highlights on demand and fantasy league gaming.  

The move is a departure for the network that provided only a very small amount of Internet viewing during past Olympic games. In fact, NBC’s Olympic coverage this year, including both network and Internet broadcasts, will exceed the combined total of every previous Summer Olympic games.

In 2000 NBC unveiled its NBCOlympics.com Web site, which provided only minimal coverage, such as schedule information and still shots, which aimed to lure viewers to its broadcast network coverage.

In 2004, the network offered a limited package of highlights but required users to provide a credit card number to gain access to the site. Although the credit card was never charged, it had the effect of driving visitors away. Two years later during the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics the network began streaming the hockey gold-medal game live over the Internet.

But the change in this year’s lineup is astounding.

"We're excited about what we are putting into the fingertips of the Olympics fan," said NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel.

"We think it will generate a tremendous amount of engagement. We think it will generate more television viewership," he told the Associated Press.

And there is the risk the network faces in providing such rich online coverage of the games: that would-be television viewers will rely solely on the Internet.

Zenkel said the network was concerned in the past that increasing the number of events covered on its television broadcast might result in a saturation that would reduce viewership.  However, that did not happen.

Even with its broadened scope, the network’s Internet coverage will still play a secondary role to television.  For example, none of the events broadcast on television will be available online until afterwards, according to Perkins Miller, senior vice president for digital media at NBC Sports. 

NBC told the AP its Olympics Web site would provide a comprehensive TV viewers’ guide, medal standings, biographies of more than 10,000 athletes and real time results.  

"It's not that we aren't nervous," said Zenkel.

"It's not that we haven't taken an enormous amount on. But we're up to it and we're going to perform as we always have in the past."

But not everyone is happy about the network’s plans.  Some media outlets are concerned that NBC is being heavy-handed in enforcing its exclusivity to cover the games.  The network paid $3.5 billion to the International Olympics Committee to televise the five Olympics through Beijing in 2008. Other television networks are allowed a limited window to provide Olympics highlights, but none of the Olympic events are permitted to be shown anywhere but NBCOlympics.com.   The network has permitted video of some Olympic trials to be shown on other Web sites, however each site is required to link to NBCOlympics.com, and all of the video must cease by Aug. 7, the day before the Beijing 2008 Summer Games begin.

According to Swimming World magazine publisher Brent Rutemiller, that's going to limit the ability of magazine to offer content to its users. Rutemiller is troubled that limits have been placed on where non-NBC organizations can interview athletes, coaches and officials.

But Zenkel said NBC was being fair to other organizations.

"NBC is the organization that paid a very significant rights fee for the exclusive rights to the Olympics and for that, the exclusivity will be protected," he said.

"But it's not to the detriment of the Olympics fan. In fact, it's to their benefit."

Image Courtesy The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad

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On the Net:

NBC Olympics: Beijing 2008

Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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