LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND and PHILADELPHIA—The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Comcast NBCUniversal have signed a wide ranging $3 billion media rights deal for the Olympic Games in the U.S. that also includes a number of joint initiatives, partnerships and projects in digital advertising and other areas.

The deal extends Comcast NBCU’s rights to the games in the U.S. on all platforms to media rights for the 2033-2036 cycle, covering the Olympic Winter Games Salt Lake City-Utah 2034 and the Olympic Games 2036 (host yet to be determined).

The agreement, which was approved by the IOC Executive Board (EB) on March 12, will start in 2025 . NBC has broadcast the Summer Games since 1988 and the Winter Games since 2002.

The IOC and Comcast NBCU stressed that the new agreement takes their longstanding media rights partnership to a new level that with wide variety of joint initiatives and partnerships in such areas as digital advertising, broadcast infrastructure and delivery of the games. Those include:

• Building on Comcast’s expertise in technology infrastructure, connectivity and media to support the delivery of the Olympic Games;
• Support for the in-venue distribution of the live TV coverage of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS);
• Support to OBS in the production of the Olympic Video Player;
• Collaboration on digital advertising opportunities in the United States;
• The IOC benefitting from Comcast’s investment in relevant and innovative start-ups;
• The extension of the media rights agreement across all platforms in the United States for the Olympic Games until 2036 on NBCUniversal, including its streaming platform Peacock.

“There is no event like the Olympics. Its power to bring joy, and the unifying spirit it embodies, are truly unique. Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said: We live in a time when technology is driving faster and more fundamental transformation than we’ve seen in decades. This groundbreaking, new, long-term partnership between Comcast NBCUniversal and the International Olympic Committee not only recognizes this dynamic but anticipates that it will accelerate. It is our honor to continue to bring the full power of our company’s expertise in creating and distributing content that connects with Americans, as well as to begin to provide even more innovative technological support and solutions to the IOC and its stakeholders in areas that benefit athletes and the many people dedicated to organizing the Olympic Games around the world.”

“As we recommit to our collective mission, this groundbreaking partnership between the IOC, Comcast NBCUniversal and the USOPC signifies a new era of collaboration and engagement that will enhance the Olympic and Paralympic Movements immediately," the President of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), Gene Sykes, added. "With our eyes set on the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 and beyond, we are excited to leverage innovative technologies and shared resources that will ensure an unforgettable experience for athletes and fans alike.”

In announcing the deal, NBCU reported that its coverage of Paris 2024 reached an average of 67 million total viewers per day across its broadcast, cable and streaming platforms. Fans streamed 23.5 billion minutes of NBCUniversal’s Paris 2024 coverage, led by streaming service Peacock – 40 per cent more than all prior Olympic Summer and Winter Games combined. Gen Z powered a record 6.55 billion impressions across NBCUniversal’s social media platforms for Paris 2024, a 184 per cent increase compared to Tokyo 2020.

The IOC and Comcast NBCU also highlighted NBCUniversal longstanding involvement with the games. Beginning with Tokyo 1964, NBCUniversal has presented 19 total Olympic Games and 13 consecutive editions, more than any other U.S. media company. Today’s announcement means that at the conclusion of the Summer Games in 2036, NBCUniversal will have presented 25 Olympic Games and 19 consecutive editions. Comcast is also a major sponsor of the Olympic and Paralympic Movements in the US, having served as an Official Partner of Team USA since 2017.

IOC officials are understandably exuberant over media coverage of the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, reporting a record amount of content and viewers worldwide.

For Paris 2024, host broadcaster Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) is producing over 11,000 hours of content—more than any previous Olympic Games, with the record output across both TV and digital platforms representing a 15.8% increase on the amount of content produced for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

“This includes more athlete-centric coverage and behind- the-scenes material, as well as cinematic lenses with a shallow depth of field to enhance the overall visual experience for the viewer,” the IOC said. “In addition, new dynamic, data-driven graphics are being used to display athletes’ performances in minute detail, while a multitude of camera angles are helping to fully immerse fans in their favorite sports. The immersive coverage being produced by OBS is already attracting record audiences on TV and digital platforms for media rights holders around the world.”

“The audiences benefit from the incredible images going to the world from Olympic Broadcasting Services and our Media Rights-Holders,” said IOC President Thomas Bach on Friday. “We are on track for more than half the world’s population to follow the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

For the host nation, the Opening Ceremony broadcast by France Télévisions attracted a record 23.4 million viewers, representing an 83.3% audience share, according to the IOC.

In the United States, NBC and Peacock registered the most-watched Opening Ceremony for an Olympic Games edition since London 2012, with 28.6 million viewers, while the total minutes consumed by the end of the opening weekend surpassed 1.1 billion across Telemundo, Universo and Peacock streaming and social media platforms, representing a 65% increase compared to the same stage of Tokyo 2020.

Warner Bros. Discovery, which is broadcasting the Games in Europe and on its streaming platforms Max and discovery+, says its total unique streaming viewers for Paris 2024 had already exceeded those from the whole of Tokyo 2020 after just two days of coverage. Across both Max and discovery+, Paris 2024 has also already driven almost one billion streaming minutes, more than seven times higher than at the same point of Tokyo 2020 and already representing 75 per cent of the total minutes from those Games, the IOC reported.

Last year’s Tokyo Olympics have been described as the first “streaming Games” after becoming the most-watched Games on digital platforms.

Timo Lumme, managing director, IOC Television and Marketing Services, said: “Beijing 2008 was perhaps the first digital Games, London 2012 was the first social media Games, and Tokyo 2020 is the first streaming Olympic Games.”

While TV remained the dominant platform, with 21.3 billion hours of Tokyo 2020 coverage consumed via TV, last summer’s event saw an upsurge of 74 per cent in digital unique viewers compared to Rio 26, reveals the IOC’s Marketing Report Tokyo 2020.

Video views on digital platforms rose by 139% compared to the previous Summer Olympics. The report suggests 3.05 billion people watched the Games, with 23 billon hours of content consumed via both TV and digital platforms.

Tokyo 2020 was the first Games to be fully produced natively in Ultra High Definition High Dynamic Range. Olympic Broadcasting Services produced 3,300 hours of UHD/HDR coverage, and 10,200 hours of content in total.

In the U.S. more than 120 billion minutes of content was consumed across all NBCU platforms (TV, digital and social). With nearly 6 billion streaming minutes across digital and social media, Tokyo 2020 was NBC Sports' Digital's most streamed Olympic games ever. Streaming platform Peacock, featuring Olympics coverage for the first time, recorded its best two weeks of usage the IOC said. 

In Europe, 1.3 billion minutes of content were consumed across Discovery’s digital platforms, with over 175 million viewing the broadcaster’s coverage on TV and digital—13 times more than PyeongChang 2018.

The BBC broadcast more hours of coverage than ever before, with a total of 36.4 million viewers for its content. Across its digital platforms, including BBC iPlayer, the Corporation reported a record-breaking 104 million requests.

In France, viewers spent an average of 7.53 hours each watching the Games.

The full IOC Marketing Report Tokyo 2020 is available here.

MADRID—The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea may be more than a year away, but U.S. fans of the Olympics won’t have to wait that long to dive back in to the stories and events that help make the games what they are. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), United States Olympic Committee (USOC), and NBCUniversal have announced the creation of a linear Olympic Channel that will launch in the U.S. in the second half of 2017.

Branded “Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA,” the new channel will offer year-round Olympic-sport programming from around the world, with an emphasis on American athletes and teams. This new channel will be a complement to the previously announced Olympic Channel OTT service that launched at the end of the 2016 Summer Olympics held this past August in Rio de Janeiro.

Content will include live sporting events from the portfolios of both the summer and winter games, as well as Olympic-themed original content produced by the IOC, USOC and NBCU. In addition, NBCU platforms will gain additional coverage of Olympic sport programs, starting with the Team USA Winter Champions Series that kicks off Saturday, Dec. 17. Further details about content will be provided at a later date.

“We are currently producing about 250 hours per year of original programming from our headquarters in Madrid,” said Mark Parkman, general manager for the Olympic Channel, during a conference call announcing the channel. “We’ve already contracted with 50 different companies from 25 different countries to produce some of this programming. I would say it’s a very ambitious plan from a content perspective.”

Specific details about availability of the channel were also revealed during the conference call. The channel will be part of the NBCU distribution portfolio going forward. The channel will currently be on AT&T/DirecTV (though not its OTT service DirecTV Now); discussion are currently underway with other MVPDs. There will be no OTT offering of the channel—it will be available through TV Everywhere devices, but user authentication will be required—though content will be available on-demand through the three partners.

“With the Olympics gams already the biggest event on the planet, this is a terrific way to grow what we refer to as the movement,” said Jim Bell, executive producer for NBC Olympics, during the call. “From a production and programming standpoint it’s tremendous to have some new found real-estate and be able spread the gospel outside of two weeks every two years.”

We see this as a really important part of the strategy to create continuity around the Olympic content, whether it’s the sports, the athletes, and some of the great stories that begin to be told during the Olympics but don’t necessarily end with the closing ceremony,” said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics.

LONDON – Used to being the one who hands out the gold medal, the International Olympic Committee is set to receive an award of its own at IBC2015 for its conservation and management its audiovisual archive of documents from past Olympic events.

Technicians examine transparencies from the photographic archive prior to conservation © CIO/Jean-Louis Strangis

The IOC has an archive featuring 2,000 hours of film, 33,000 hours of video, 8,500 hours of audio and more than 500,000 photographs dating back to the first modern day Olympics in 1896. According to IOC’s archivists, within a few years 50 percent of videos would be unplayable, 20 percent of the faded photographs would be unusable, and there would be no audio players available for a majority of the collection.

With the implementation of the Patrimonial Assets Management program and work from up to 40 specialists, the project took seven years of a combined 100,000 total work hours to cataloguing, indexing, scanning, digital cleaning and restoration.

 “This project is very important for two reasons,” said Michael Lumley, chair of the IBC Awards panel. “First, it ensures that more than a century of Olympic history is preserved for the future. But perhaps even more important, it draws the industry’s focus on a subject is all too easy to ignore.”

“Broadcasters, production companies and anyone with an audiovisual archive can look to the IOC’s Patrimonial Asset Management project to see a model of conservation and access,” Lumley continued. “IBC is pleased to be able to draw attention to this issue through this award, as well as recognizing the excellent work the IOC is undertaking.”

IBC2015 takes place from Sept. 10-15 in Amsterdam.