Traffic to NBC Olympics Web Site Rises

By ANICK JESDANUN

NEW YORK – NBC’s Olympics Web site, carrying more video of competition than ever before, is seeing increases in usage even as television viewership is down.

The http://www.NBCOlympics.com site already drew more than 167 million page views, surpassing the 145 million page views during the entire 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City with more than a week of competition left in Turin, Italy, according to NBC Universal.

And the site broke daily records on Monday when it got 29 million page views. The previous record was 21 million on Aug. 17, 2004, during the Summer Games in Athens, Greece (The site also exceeded the Athens high on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday).

Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics, credits a change in philosophy.

"Our strategy has evolved over time from one where we would use the Internet and these digital platforms to promote television," Zenkel said. "It has evolved into a strategy in which we use these digital platforms to make more content available."

That means more video on the Internet – much more – rather than a focus on data like results and television listings, he said.

Instead of brief video highlights, NBC is showing for free, on a delayed basis, the complete runs and routines for the top finishers and for all U.S. participants in almost every event.

And given improvements and greater comfort with technologies to keep foreigners from watching, necessary because broadcast rights are sold by territory, NBC no longer required address verification using a Visa credit card.

According to NBC, the site delivered 4.2 million video streams through Thursday, equating to more than 42,000 hours.

Nielsen/NetRatings, an audience-ratings service, also reported jumps for NBC.

For the week that ended last Sunday, which includes the first three days of the Olympics, NBCOlympics.com had 1.6 million unique visitors from U.S. homes, a 54 percent increase from the 1 million for the same period during the 2002 Winter Games. The site drew 1.3 million during a comparable period in Athens.

The online boost isn’t universal.

The official Olympics Web site – this year’s at http://www.torino2006.org – saw declines. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, the official site drew 515,000 visitors for the week that ended Sunday, compared with 640,000 for the same period in 2004 and 789,000 in 2002. That’s a 35 percent drop from Salt Lake City.

Meanwhile, NBCOlympics.com soundly beat the "American Idol" site in visitation through Sunday, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, even as the Fox singing contest crushed the Olympics on television Tuesday and Wednesday.

Overall, for the first four days of competition, the average Olympics television viewership of 21.6 million people was down 36 percent from Salt Lake City.

Many factors are at work, including the fact that other networks are putting up their better shows against the Olympics. And the Salt Lake City Games were unusually good for NBC. Domestic Olympics typically fare better and there was a surge of patriotism following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Zenkel, who said the television audiences are in line with projections, said the Internet was not to blame.

"The Internet … is a platform that people are using when they are away from their television," he said. "When one is in front of the television or in their home, I’m sure they are opting to watch the Olympics on television."

Jon Gibs, director of media analytics for Nielsen/NetRatings, agrees that the Internet likely won’t draw viewers away from television for popular events like figure skating, although "if you are talking about one or two ski races or cross-country skiing, knowing who the winner is may affect you."