Sports producers battling rising costs amid audience fragmentation have much to explore at this year’s NAB Show, where an extended four-day Sports Summit complements an unprecedented display of tech innovations aimed at building fan engagement.

Across exhibit halls and in meeting rooms and hotel suites, visitors will find an AI-driven potpourri of ever-expanding options that portend a wild ride ahead for sports producers.

“Ideas can come from anywhere,” said Mike Davies, Fox Sports executive vice president of technical and field operations. “You just need to utter an idea, and it can be turned into reality in a matter of weeks or months.”

The AI impact can be seen wherever equipment and software solutions used in live sports production are on display, including exhibits featuring:

• Next-generation cameras.
• Automated production workflows.
• Real-time data applications supporting feature personalization and insights into user behavior.
• Advances in immersive audio and video.
• Innovations in user experience like multiviewing involving sports program or play-action multiviewing.

AI Abounds

“There’s more and more AI, not just in postproduction, but using AI for camera tracking and image capture within the event,” said Duane Yoslov, senior vice president at Diversified, known for its role in designing and building experience-rich sports and other environments.

“Some of the AI camera robotic tracking technology is really impressive.” He said many shots covering competition at the Winter Olympics “have never been done before.”

Indeed, the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics offered an especially dramatic demonstration of the transformation in live sports coverage enabled by advanced production technology, in this case supplied by Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS).

From its suite at the Encore Las Vegas, the company is explaining how “Comcast Sports360 from Comcast Technology Solutions enables us to deliver the speed, quality and reliability that Olympics coverage demands, supporting seamless, multiformat delivery across a wide range of platforms,” said Darryl Jefferson, senior vice president of engineering and technology for NBC Sports and Olympics.

NBC chose Sony Electronics, exhibiting in the Central Hall at C8401, to deal with the challenges posed for capturing the action in the widely dispersed, geographically diverse regions of the Milan-Cortina games.

As described by Jefferson, the game plan leveraged “high-quality monitoring, color grading tools and highly customizable remote production workflows” with the “use of 2110 transport, teams of color experts shading Sony’s HDR cameras from a distance, enhanced PTZ robotic cameras and support for our end-to-end BT-2020 HDR Workflow through production and our facility in Stamford.”

The many approaches suppliers of cameras and related gear are taking to address these new performance demands are on display across the Central Hall.

For example, as reflected in the long-distance Winter Olympics production operations, one response to the new requirements involves support for operators’ shift to IP-based production workflows. Because it often happens incrementally, the shift requires support for seamlessly switching camera feeds between SDI output and IP transport over ST 2110 or alternatives like Network Device Interface (NDI) or Secure Reliable Transport (SRT).

“We’re seeing a shift to IP-based workflows, especially in the high-end broadcast space,” said Peyton Thomas, a product manager at Panasonic.

At booth C3509, Panasonic is displaying 4K Studio and 4K Multipurpose Cameras supporting selection of multiple transport options without the use of an external camera control unit (CCU). Live IP feeds into production workflows can include hybrid workflows anchored in Panasonic’s KAIROS IT/IP software system to enable live A/V production processing with an unrestricted number of media effects utilizing SDI baseband or IP signals formatted to ST 2110, NDI or SRT.

Live Tech Gets Versatile
As for the suppliers focused on live production workflows, multiprotocol versatility is just part of what’s in play to add efficiency, remote operational flexibility and enhanced feature output to their platforms.

There’s also a widespread focus on fostering interoperability to address producers’ objections to vendor lock-in as they move to cloud-based software solutions.

One case in point can be found in the Central Hall, where Grass Valley (C2408) is promoting the GV Media Universe as a multivendor environment in which its virtualized Agile Media Processing Platform (AMPP) operates as a single control layer, seamlessly integrating live production workflows across its own and other hardware and software solutions.

Similarly, TVU Networks, exhibiting in the West Hall (W1717), has responded to broadcasters’ migrations to cloud production by opening its MediaMesh-based remote production ecosystem to access by competitors.

An emerging force behind vendor interoperability, as well as virtualized cloud efficiency in live sports production workflows, is the Media eXchange Layer (MXL) software development kit (SDK), managed through the Linux Foundation-backed MXL Project and supported by industry organizations and vendors worldwide.

The open-source MXL SDK provides a commonly shared approach to working with packetized video, audio and data essences as individual microservices in container-virtualized datacenters.

“It is a way of breaking down the barriers, not having to encapsulate 2110 every time you want to do another bit of processing in the workflow,” said Daniel Robinson, product manager for MXL at Matrox.

Robinson says the company, exhibiting in the North Hall at N2451, is one of about six vendors “that have actually got it working in our product and have since the beginning.”

Another trend in full bloom at NAB Show involves two approaches to enabling multiviewing by sports fans, one that allows them to track multiple parallel games through a single, immersive viewing experience and the other enabling access to multiple camera feeds.

Multiviewing of one kind or another is now supported by several vendors at the show, including MediaKind (W1743), Harmonic (W2831), Techex (W2267) and Red5, which is running a live multiview display of camera feeds from the show floor at Nomad Media’s booth (W2357).

Marking another new development with much broader implications, Red5 is also one of a growing coterie of streaming platform providers, including Bitmovin (W3323), CacheFly (W3129), Cisco (W2633), Cloudflare (W2300G), Synamedia (W2851) and others, who are in the process of enabling real-time interactive streaming of sports and other live content via the emerging Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard known as Media Over QUIC (MOQ).

Red5 is demonstrating MOQ at the Nomad Media booth in conjunction with global CDN supplier CacheFly and in a display with Amazon Web Services (W1701), showing how a live-streamed sports production distributed in real-time over MOQ and at higher latencies over Low-Latency HLS and conventional HLS can be managed from a single browser.

© 2026 NAB

HACKENSACK, N.J.—LiveU has released details of the first large-scale deployment of its AI-driven LiveU IQ (LIQ) technology at a global, multi-venue sporting event, the Winter Olympic Games.

During the games, broadcasters relied on LIQ to dynamically manage connectivity in some of the most demanding live production environments – from crowded arenas to remote mountain venues. Around 60% of supported sessions were transmitted using LIQ, achieving over 36% higher average bitrates and enabling consistent 4K and HDR coverage, at scale. Broadcasters were able to confidently rely on IP contribution as a primary workflow, supporting both traditional broadcast and digital-first distribution strategies.

More than 980 LiveU units were deployed by broadcasters from 37 countries, delivering over 15,000 hours of live broadcast and a total of 134TB of live video across nearly 12,000 live sessions, underscoring the industry’s accelerating shift toward IP-based production models.

Unlike traditional IP bonding, LIQ uses AI-driven predictive congestion management and real-time network analysis to optimize transmission paths dynamically. This capability is particularly critical at major global sporting events, where thousands of competing devices, fluctuating network conditions, and geographically dispersed venues can challenge transmission stability. By anticipating network congestion and adapting in real time, LIQ enables broadcasters to maintain premium video quality even in highly complex, bandwidth-constrained environments.

“The Winter Games marked a pivotal moment for LiveU,” said Ophir Zardok, head of sports strategy & business development, LiveU. “This was the first time LIQ was deployed across a global sporting event of this magnitude. The results validated our vision for AI-driven connectivity – delivering significantly higher bitrates while maintaining rock-solid resiliency across thousands of live transmissions. For broadcasters operating in remote, high-density and multi-venue environments, that level of performance changes what’s possible.”

Cloud and remote production workflows were used by rights holders and broadcasters to centralize operations and streamline multi-platform distribution. Solutions including LiveU Studio, LiveU Matrix and LiveU Record supported flexible production models while reducing on-site crew requirements. LiveU’s on-site and remote support teams ensured seamless deployment and operational continuity throughout the event.

Austria’s national public broadcaster ORF deployed 23 LU800 units across Milan and Cortina, equipping 17 camera crews positioned throughout northern Italy. LiveU's longstanding local partner, ETAS High-Tech Systems GmbH, provided the units and the local support.

Christian Zettl, TV production manager at ORF, said, “The LiveU deployment gave us maximum flexibility and optimal conditions for bringing the Olympics into our viewers’ living rooms as comprehensively as possible, while also contributing to significant savings in production costs. We primarily used the LU800 units for interviews and playouts, but also for transferring our footage from helmet cameras and for broadcasting scheduled interviews with up to three cameras.”

“What we’re seeing is a fundamental acceleration toward intelligent, IP-based production,” Zardok added. “Broadcasters are no longer asking whether IP can handle premium live sports — they’re asking how far they can scale it. As we look ahead to the upcoming world football championship in the Americas, we expect this momentum to grow significantly.”

For more information, please visit www.liveu.tv

STAMFORD, Conn.—Newly released viewing figures for the U.S. show that the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics were up 96% from the 2022 games and were the most watched Winter Games since 2014.

The games, which saw NBCUniversal cover more than 3,200 hours of the action from 116 events and a star-studded performance by Team USA, which won its most-ever Winter Games gold medals (12), also saw viewers consum more than 16.7 billion minutes of streaming on NBCU platforms, more than double the combined total of all prior Winter Games.

NBCU also reported that more than 215 million Americans (215.6 million through Feb. 17) tuned in across NBCUniversal’s platforms for what it has been calling “Legendary February,” headlined by Super Bowl LX, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, the NBA All-Star-Game, and the Feb. 1 debut of Sunday Night Basketball on February, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel reach metrics.

“Beginning with the February 1 debut of Sunday Night Basketball, our NBC Sports and Olympics personnel delivered a truly ‘Legendary February’ to our audiences on NBC, Telemundo, Peacock and Versant’s USA Network and CNBC that definitely exceeded our expectations," said Rick Cordella, president, NBC Sports. "The success of the Milan Cortina Olympics, Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara and the 2026 NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles could not have happened without the enormous cooperation and support from across Comcast NBCUniversal— including Peacock, NBC Entertainment, NBC News, Telemundo, local owned-stations, NBC affiliates, our exceptional ad sales and distribution teams, and Xfinity. And, of course, our great partners at the IOC, USOPC, NFL and NBA.”

Other data highlights from the month include:

• Milan Cortina Winter Olympics – most-watched Winter Games since 2014.
• Super Bowl LX – most-watched show in NBC’s 100-year history; second-most watched show of all-time (with largest peak audience of any show in U.S. history); most watched Super Bowl in Spanish language history on Telemundo
• NBA All-Star Game – most-watched since 2011.
• NBC Sports has the most-watched football, basketball and hockey game of this TV season, all coming within Legendary February.
• Since Feb. 1, NBC-owned and affiliated stations dominated broadcast television, topping primetime local market ratings in all 56 metered markets.
• Peacock achieved its biggest month ever.

Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics added that “The Milan Cortina Olympics proved once again that the American audience will gather in large numbers over 17 days to experience this unmatched global competition. These Winter Games — superbly hosted across northern Italy, and produced and distributed by a team of 2,700 — reached blockbuster U.S. audiences of more than 50 million viewers each day, continuing the media dominance we experienced less than two years ago at the Paris Olympics. We can’t wait for the return of the Olympics to the United States with the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028 and are ecstatic to be the U.S. media home of five Olympic Games over the next decade.”

Additional viewing data from the Olympics included:

• Beginning with the primetime show on the field at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., immediately after calling his first Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 8, NBCU’s lead Olympics host Mike Tirico anchored more than 70 hours across two primetime presentations – the latter portion of live Milan Prime coverage from 2-5 p.m. ET and the traditional U.S. primetime (Primetime in Milan) at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Tirico’s closing comments from the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena following the gold medal men’s hockey game have been viewed more than six million times across NBC Sports’ social platforms.
• From the most-watched Opening Ceremony in 12 years through the Closing Ceremony, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics averaged 23.5 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, NBCUniversal Digital Platforms and Versant’s CNBC and USA Network across the combined live afternoon Milan Prime window (2-5 p.m. ET) and U.S. primetime (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) time periods. Milan Cortina viewership is the highest for a Winter Games since Sochi 2014 and up 96% from the 2022 Beijing Olympics (12.0 million). Viewership is based on official Nielsen Big Data + Panel viewership (through Thursday 2/19) and preliminary data from Nielsen (2/20-22), and digital data from Adobe Analytics. Final data will be available later this week.
• All 15 full competition days (Sat., Feb. 7 through Sat., Feb. 21) topped 20 million viewers
• Over the full Games, Milan Prime (live U.S. daytime) and Primetime in Milan (U.S. primetime) coverage posted a daily streaming TAD of 3.3 million viewers across Peacock and NBCU Digital platforms.
• As the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics concluded with last night’s Closing Ceremony, the NBC Broadcast Network extended its streak to 143 consecutive Olympics nights as primetime’s No. 1 show – dating to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
• Throughout “Legendary February,” NBC-owned and affiliated stations have dominated broadcast television, topping primetime local market ratings in all 56 metered markets.
• Milwaukee led all markets in local ratings during the Milan Cortina Olympics. A chart of the Top 20 markets is at bottom.
• Peacock had its best month ever. Led by Peacock, a Winter Games record 16.7 billion minutes of Milan Cortina Olympics coverage were streamed across NBCUniversal digital platforms – more than double all prior Winter Olympics combined (6.9 billion minutes). Peacock streamed more than 850 live events over a 17-day period. Peacock also served as the live streaming home for Super Bowl LX, the NBA All-Star Game and the debut of Sunday Night Basketball. The post-Super Bowl premiere of “The ’Burbs” was the highest Day 1 Peacock original debut ever and has already generated nearly 1 billion viewing minutes on platform since its Feb. 8 launch. In addition, four of the top 10 Peacock usage days all-time and seven of Peacock’s 10 largest reach days of all-time happened during the Milan Cortina Olympics.
• Three days apart, United States Women’s and Men’s Hockey Teams defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime to win Olympic gold medals. On Thursday, the USA-Canada game was the most-watched women’s hockey game on record, averaging 5.3 million viewers on USA Network and Peacock. The audience peaked at 7.7 million viewers in overtime (3:45-4 p.m. ET).
• In Sunday’s final medal event of the Milan Cortina Olympics, Team USA won its first gold medal in men’s hockey since 1980 in Lake Placid. Viewership figures for NBC Sports’ presentation of the game will be available on Tuesday.
• Featuring live coverage of every Winter Games sport, USA Network was the top destination for sports and entertainment programming on cable from the first day of competition on USA Network on Feb. 5 through Feb. 17 (latest data available in Nielsen NPower). USA Network has delivered an average of 1.7 million primetime viewers from Feb. 5-17 – topping all sports and entertainment cable networks. USA Network has delivered an average of 1.3 million Total Day viewers from Feb. 5-17 – topping all sports and entertainment cable networks. USA Network delivered an average of 1.64 million Total Day viewers across consecutive weekends (Feb. 7-8 and Feb. 14-15) – the best average viewership across successive weekends since December 2014.
• Milan Cortina Olympics content registered 4.28 billion impressions across NBC Sports social channels – a 437% increase vs. the Beijing Olympics and 231% above the PyeongChang Olympics. In addition, NBC Sports social channels delivered a 434% increase in social video viewership over the Beijing Olympics and more than 9X over PyeongChang. They also added 1.4 million new followers to the full portfolio of accounts/channels.
• Social video views across NBC News and TODAY Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube accounts are up 1,087% vs. Beijing.
• NBCU delivered the highest Olympic and Paralympic advertising revenue for Winter Games in company history. The highest :30 second ad unit rate for Super Bowl ever. The digital ad revenue for Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics also tripled the 2022 Beijing Olympics, revenue setting Winter Games records

STAMFORD, CONN.—NBC Sports has provided new details on how it is using NEP Group to provide a full range of media services, dynamic facilities, broadcast technology and engineering support in both Milan, Italy, and at NBC Sports headquarters in the U.S. for its production of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Feb. 6-22, and March 6-15, respectively.

NEP has worked with NBC Sports for more than 35 years, assisting NBC Sports’ production efforts at previous Olympics—dating back to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea—and other major international sports events across North America, Europe and Asia.

NBC Sports is utilizing NEP’s global media services in both Milan, Italy, and at NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Conn.

In Milan, NEP Europe is supporting coverage of the Opening Ceremony, figure skating and short track competition at the Milano Ice Skating Arena, and broadcast operations at the Duomo TV Tower, the city’s central broadcast and production hub.

Coverage of the Opening Ceremony is utilizing NEP’s IP outside broadcast facilities, including a large onsite production gallery. At the Milano Ice Skating Arena, NEP’s TFC technology-powered flypack system supports an onsite master control room, along with audio, production, and replay galleries.

Each of these venues are equipped with fully 1080p HDR production workflows, ensuring consistent picture quality from capture through delivery. These systems are directly integrated into NBCUniversal’s core broadcast infrastructure, enabling seamless communication between venues and facilities in Milan and NBC Sports’ production and engineering teams in the U.S.

In Stamford, Conn., NBC Sports is utilizing two 1080p HDR NEP remote facilities supporting coverage of freestyle skiing -- including aerials and moguls -- as well as events taking place at the Snow Park in Livigno, Italy.

NEP’s industry-leading engineering and technical staff are supporting NBC operations at each touchpoint, with more than 350 NEP team members working across sites in northern Italy.

“NBC Sports and NBC Olympics’ partnership with NEP is a critical part of the broadcast strategy in Italy and augmenting the facilities in Stamford, offering a wide variety of broadcast solutions from mobile units, fly packs, remote operation support, as well as technical personnel,” said Darryl Jefferson, senior vice president of engineering & technology for NBC Sports & Olympics. “The versatility of tech offerings is what is a remarkable part of the ongoing partnership.”

“This year, NEP is celebrating 40 years of innovation, reliability and excellence supporting our customers in delivering the world’s biggest events, and we’re incredibly proud to say that our partnership with NBC Sports has been built and strengthened over nearly four decades of collaboration,” said Mike Werteen, president of NEP Americas and global chief commercial officer of NEP Group.

NBCUniversal is presenting its 20th Olympic Games, 13th consecutive overall, and owns the U.S. media rights on all platforms to all Olympic Games through 2036, which are scheduled for Milan Cortina (2026), Los Angeles (2028), French Alps (2030), Brisbane (2032), Salt Lake City-Utah (2034), and the Olympic Games 2036 (host yet to be determined).

TV Tech's full coverage of the technologies being used to cover the Olympics can be found here.

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Sports has released new viewing data showing that the first NBA All-Star Game presented by NBC Sports since 2002 had the largest audiences for the game since 2011 and that viewing levels for the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics continue to remain strong, averaging 24.5 million viewers through Sunday, Feb. 15.

The new “USA vs. The World” format for the NBA All-Star audience averaged 8.8 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, and Telemundo, according to preliminary Nielsen data and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

Highlighted by Anthony Edwards’ MVP performance for the victorious USA Stars, and Victor Wembanyama’s 33 points, eight rebounds and two blocks for the World team, the 2026 NBA All-Star Game topped last year’s viewership by 87% (4.7 million viewers). Viewership peaked at 9.8 million viewers from 7-7:15 p.m. ET for the closing minutes of the USA Stripes’ 48-45 victory over World.

NBA All-Star coverage followed a full day of Milan Cortina Winter Olympic competition, and led into Primetime in Milan.

Sunday’s Milan Cortina Olympics coverage averaged 26.6 million viewers for the live afternoon window (Milan Prime: 2-5 p.m. ET) and Primetime in Milan (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) across NBC, Peacock, NBCUniversal Digital Platforms and Versant’s CNBC and USA Network, according to preliminary Nielsen data and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

Through Sunday Feb. 15, nine of the 10 days of Milan Cortina Winter Olympic coverage have topped 20 million viewers, according to official Nielsen Big Data + Panel viewership and preliminary data from Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

Through Sunday, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics is averaging 24.5 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, NBCUniversal Digital Platforms and Versant’s CNBC and USA Network – marking the most-watched Winter Games presentation at this point since the 2014 Sochi Olympics, according to official Nielsen Big Data + Panel viewership and preliminary data from Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

Led by Peacock, a record 10.3 billion minutes of Milan Cortina Olympics content have been streamed, topping by nearly 50% all prior Winter Games combined (6.9 billion minutes).

MILAN—With the Olympic Winter Games in full swing, Worldwide Olympic Partner TCL has announced that it is supplying advanced display technology and expertise for the International Broadcast Centre (IBC), the central technical hub for global media coverage operated by Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).

The company said it has provided large quantities of TV screens, as well as commercial display screens and a large-scale LED installation.

Additionally, TCL has equipped the IBC's visitor exhibition area with its latest flagship innovation, the groundbreaking TCL X11L SQD-Mini LED TV. Standing for Super Quantum Dot, it sets a new standard for display technology with unmatched brightness and contrast, exceptional color performance, an industry‑first, ultra‑slim, borderless design, and top‑tier audio.

TCL also provided its 65-inch televisions for the Main Press Center (MPC) to help the world's media follow every moment of the action, and additional TVs across Olympic venues.

TCL’s 55" screens play a vital role in supporting the "Athlete Moment," where athletes can see and speak with family and friends at home immediately after their events. By making it feel as though their loved ones are at their side, TCL's technology is helping to create powerful moments of connection and celebration throughout the Olympic Winter Games.

"We are delighted to welcome TCL as a Worldwide Olympic Partner,” explained Yiannis Exarchos, the CEO of OBS. “Only a select number of companies globally have the scale, capability, innovation, and technology required to meet the demands we face as the host broadcaster of the Olympic Games—and even fewer pair that with a deep understanding of Olympic values and the power of the Olympic Winter Games to bring people together."

Beyond supporting the competition and broadcast, TCL is also enhancing daily life in the Anterselva and Livigno Olympic Villages by providing smart home appliances, supporting athletes' comfort through technology thanks to the smart washing machines and dryers that keep competition gear fresh. Additionally, the Plaza of the Milano Olympic Village features a space showcasing TCL's latest innovations, including AI-enabled air conditioners and TCL RayNeo AR glasses. The glasses are the ideal partner for athletes as they offer real-time translation through augmented reality and can provide navigation cues and information as they explore Milan.

More of TV Tech's coverage of the technologies being used at the Olympics is available here.

STAMFORD, Conn.—As of Weds. Feb. 11, NBCUniversal is reporting that its coverage of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics has averaged 25.7 million viewers, more than double the average audiences (12.6 million) who watched the Beijing Olympics in a similar period.

As of Feb. 11 NBCU also reported that more than 200 million Americans (200.1 million) have watched NBCUniversal’s presentation of what it is calling “Legendary February”, headlined by Super Bowl LX, the Winter Olympics, and the debut of Sunday Night Basketball on February 1, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel reach data.

“This level of audience accumulation over just an 11-day period is exceptional in today’s media environment,” said Rick Cordella, president, NBC Sports. “We look forward to continued momentum, with Team USA in contention for many medals in upcoming Olympic competition, and the return of NBA All-Star Weekend to NBC for the first time in more than two decades.”

More specifically, NBCU reported these viewing figures:

• Through Wednesday, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics is averaging 25.7 million viewers on NBC, Peacock, NBCUniversal Digital Platforms and Versant’s CNBC and USA Network – marking the most-watched Winter Games presentation at this point since 2014 Sochi Olympics, according to official Nielsen Big Data + Panel viewership and preliminary data from Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
• NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina Olympics viewership – headlined by live coverage in the afternoon (Milan Prime: 2-5 p.m. ET) followed by Primetime in Milan (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) – is double the Beijing Olympics at this point (12.8 million average).
• Led by the NBC broadcast network, all six days of Milan Cortina Winter Olympic coverage (since last Friday’s Opening Ceremony) have topped 20 million viewers – with Wednesday’s show averaging 21.5 million viewers – and have posted significant gains over 2022.
• Led by Peacock, 6.3 billion minutes of Milan Cortina Olympics content have been streamed, topping the last two Winter Games combined (6.1 billion minutes for Beijing and PyeongChang).

The numbers are particularly good news for the company, which owns the U.S. media rights to the Olympic Games through 2036 including Milan Cortina (2026), Los Angeles (2028), French Alps (2030), Brisbane (2032), Utah (2034), and the 2036 Summer Games.

STAMFORD, Conn.—As NBCUniversal prepares to air the Opening Ceremony of Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, the company has released additional details showing the immense scale of its coverage, which will provide more than 3,200 total hours across broadcast, cable, and streaming, including 2,500+ streaming hours, a record 700+ hours on linear television, all 116 medal events live on Peacock, and commentary from more than 80 commentators.

TV Tech’s full coverage of the tech plans and production technologies being used for the Winter Olympics can be found here, here and here.

The February Digital Edition of TV Tech also contains extensive coverage of the Olympics and previews of their production plans.

NBCU provides these stats to show the scale of its coverage:

• 115,000: Square feet in NBC Sports’ integration facility and warehouse in Connecticut, where nearly all of its production and engineering infrastructure begins its journey to northern Italy.
• 3,983: Distance in miles between NBC Sports’ International Broadcast Center in Stamford, Conn., and Milan, Italy.
• 3,200+: Total programming hours across NBCU’s linear and digital platforms.
• 2,900: Approximate total number of athletes expected to compete at Milan Cortina 2026, a Winter Olympics record.
• 2,500+: Hours of streaming coverage across Peacock and NBC Sports’ Digital platforms.
• 1972: Year that marked NBC’s first-ever coverage of an Olympic Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan.
• 1,600: Approximate number of NBCU Olympics employees based at NBC Sports’ International Broadcast Center in Stamford, Conn.
• 1,000: Approximate number of NBCU Olympics employees on-site in northern Italy.
• 700+: Hours of coverage being telecast across linear platforms.
• 232: Number of Team USA athletes expected to compete at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
• 230+: Number of hours on the NBC broadcast network, a Winter Olympics record.
• 116: Number of medal events at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, all of which will be streamed live on Peacock.
• 92: Number of countries and territories taking part in the Parade of Athletes at the Opening Ceremony.
• 84: Number of commentators on NBCU’s talent roster.
• 62: Total number of medals won at the Beijing Winter Olympics by the United States and Norway, who will face off in mixed doubles curling on Wednesday, Feb. 4, at 4:05 a.m. ET on Peacock, marking Team USA’s first event of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
• 50: Number of Full Remote Edit Rooms in use.
• 44: Number of Olympic medals won by NBCU’s Olympic commentators.
• 41: Number of total events that the NBC Olympics Research team went to in preparation for the Games.
• 35: Number of Multi-Purpose Flexible Use Rooms used for everything from replay operations, remote graphics, telestration, and more.
• 17: Number of purpose-built broadcast booths at NBC Sports’ International Broadcast Center in Stamford, Conn., where a select commentators will call live competition from.
• 17: Consecutive nights of primetime coverage on the NBC broadcast network.
• 16: Number of Olympics that NBCU’s lead alpine skiing play-by-play commentator Dan Hicks will have worked.
• 14: Number of international trips that the NBC Olympics Research team went to in preparation for the Games, including four countries and five Canadian provinces.
• 13: Number of Production Control Rooms at NBC Sports’ International Broadcast Center in Stamford, Conn.
• 8: Number of Winter Olympics broadcast by NBC, including Milan Cortina.
• 6: Number of hours northern Italy is ahead of the U.S. Eastern time zone.
• 5: Number of Muppets of Sesame Street (Elmo, Cookie Monster, Grover, Bert, and Oscar the Grouch) who will travel to Milan and be incorporated into NBCU’s comprehensive social and broadcast coverage surrounding the Games.
• 4K: NBC and Peacock will be “4K All Day” for Super Bowl LX and the Winter Olympics on Sunday, Feb. 8.
• 3: Number of Olympic Winter Games that Italy has hosted, joining the United States (four) and France (three) as the only countries to host the Winter Games three or more times.
• 2: Number of cities officially co-hosting these Winter Olympics, marking the first time this has happened.
• 1: The one and only Snoop Dogg will contribute to NBCU’s coverage of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, providing his unique take on what’s happening in northern Italy.

NBC and Peacock will present live coverage of the Opening Ceremony on Friday, Feb. 6, beginning at 2 p.m. ET. Primetime coverage will begin at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock.

The NBC broadcast network and streaming service Peacock will be the company’s primary platforms for its coverage of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, scheduled for Feb. 5-22.

For more information on how to watch the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics across NBCUniversal, click here.

BEAVERTON, Ore.—HDR10+ Technologies, a multi-industry association that encompasses more than 170 adopters and nearly 20,000 certified devices, is reporting that the France 2 UHD TV channel will be broadcasting the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in 4K Ultra HD which utilizes HDR10+ metadata technology to optimize video image quality on a scene-by-scene basis.

The broadcasts, which will run February 6 to 22, are just the latest example of how HDR10+ is being used for a variety of applications in the entertainment industry, the group said.

In addition to providing superior video quality, France 2 UHD will be offering three different immersive audio mixing options on compatible televisions: a traditional mix balancing commentary and ambient sounds; a mix where the commentary volume is increased by 6 dB for greater voice intelligibility; and a mix that contains ambient sounds only, without any commentary.

According to Bill Mandel, co-manager of HDR10+ Technologies, LLC “We are pleased to work with France Télévisions Group to utilize HDR10+ to help the Olympic Games enthusiasts to enjoy the highest quality video and audio possible”.

Jacques Donat-Bouillud, director of distribution, France Télévisions Group added that “France 2 UHD is proud to deliver the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in native UHD. This exceptional image quality and more immersive sound will enable our viewers to experience these Olympic Games as if they were on the slopes or ice rink.”

For more information on HDR10+ please contact info@hdr10plus.org

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Sports has selected SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology) to provide results and timing interfaces, data integration tools, and broadcast graphics support for its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Feb. 6-22.

For the games, NBC Sports will utilize SMT to deliver real-time results and timing interfaces, scoring and graphics elements, and comprehensive production data support for its production of the 2026 Winter Olympics.

SMT will provide TVI (broadcast television interface) support services for figure skating and alpine skiing, speed skating, short track, bobsled, luge, skeleton, snowboard, and freestyle skiing (produced from Stamford). SMT will also supply its SportsCG timing and scoring system and CIS (Commentator Information Screen) for figure skating coverage.

Additional SMT services include data feed support for Peacock digital coverage and a media asset management tool that integrates with NBC Sports’ production environment. SMT will also deploy heart-rate monitor kits, for select family members, to illustrate the adrenaline spikes experienced as families watch their loved ones compete. These services will help NBC Sports route the excitement in Italy back to viewers watching coverage of the Games in the United States.

“Each Olympic Games expands the data landscape for storytelling. SMT’s flexibility with new technologies and diverse data sources enables us to integrate results and context for live and postproduction,” said Dan Robertson, vice president, Olympics Information Technology, NBC Sports. “That agility elevates NBC Sports’ data presentation—delivering richer graphics, smarter insights, and dynamic storytelling across linear and digital platforms.”

SMT has worked with NBC Sports since 2000, assisting production efforts at previous Olympics and other major international sports events across Europe and Asia.

“SMT is proud to bring our proven expertise, rigorous preparation, and trusted results technology to NBC Sports’ coverage of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, continuing a legacy of support that began in Sydney in 2000,” said Gerard J. Hall, founder and CEO, SMT.

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina 2026 programming.

TV Tech’s overall coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

STAMFORD, CONN—NBC Sports has selected Audio-Technica to once again provide professional microphones, broadcast headsets, headphones and related accessories for its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

NBC Sports will utilize Audio-Technica equipment to deliver much of its audio capture requirements across all sporting venues for its production of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, helping NBC Sports route the excitement in Italy back to viewers watching coverage of the Games in the United States.

“NBC Sports is proud to mark 25 years of partnership with Audio-Technica, whose advanced audio technology solutions have played a vital role in supporting NBC Olympics’ production efforts around the world. Throughout this longstanding partnership, Audio-Technica has continued to deliver premium products and pioneering innovations in microphone technology, serving as the foundation of an audio signal chain dedicated to superior sound quality and reliability. Audio-Technica consistently delivers outstanding performance, Games after Games, whether in the host city as well as at our Stamford broadcast facility,” said Karl Malone, senior director, audio engineering at NBC Sports.

“We are delighted to be able to once again provide an extensive package of microphones, headsets and headphones that meets the demanding of technical requirements of NBC Sports”, states Rodrigo Thomaz, project manager – broadcast partnerships at Audio-Technica with technical responsibility for the collaboration; “and that they continue to have the confidence in our brand to deliver both on audio quality and logistical excellence.”

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina 2026 programming.

TV Tech’s overall coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Sports has announced that Planar is providing LED video walls for its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

NBC Sports will utilize Planar to deliver leading-edge fine pixel pitch LED video wall technology for its production of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Planar DirectLight Pro Series LED video walls in a 1.2 millimeter pixel pitch will cover architectural archways and windows within Studio A and Studio B in Milan helping NBC Sports route the excitement in Italy back to viewers watching coverage of the Games in the United States.

“The Winter Olympics are one of the most visually stunning events in the world, and Planar’s LED video walls help us capture that beauty in full detail,” said Atila Ozkaplan, vice president of production operations, Olympics. “From our Milan studios, we’re able to immerse viewers in the energy of the Games, elevating our storytelling through the vibrant imagery created by our talented graphics artists.”

Planar has worked with NBC Sports since 2016, assisting production efforts at previous Olympics and other major international sports events in North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

“We’re proud to return as an LED video wall provider for the world’s most prestigious sporting event, powering NBC Sports’ broadcast coverage of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics with leading-edge LED video walls that deliver stunning visuals,” said Tom Petershack, general manager of media and special projects at Planar. “Our displays are built to elevate the broadcast environment, enabling storytelling that connects with audiences in meaningful ways. We’re honored to once again support NBC Sports with technology that broadcasters trust—helping ensure that viewers at home feel the same energy, excitement and immersion that comes alive inside the studios in Italy.”

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina 2026 programming.

TV Tech’s overall coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

STAMFORD, Conn. & DENVER, Colo.—NBC Sports has announced that it is using Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) to provide multiscreen video management and delivery for its production of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

NBC Sports will utilize Comcast Sports360 from Comcast Technology Solutions, which includes CTS’ Cloud Video Platform, to manage on-demand content and metadata, and publish video across devices, sites, and apps for its production of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

CTS is helping NBC Sports route the excitement in Italy back to viewers watching coverage of the Games in the United States, through engaging fan experiences, including Olympic video highlights and comprehensive event coverage.

“The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will be one of the most expansive productions in our history, with viewers expecting seamless access to every event and key moment across the screens of their choice,” said Darryl Jefferson, senior vice president of engineering and technology, NBC Sports and Olympics. “Comcast Sports360 from Comcast Technology Solutions enables us to deliver the speed, quality, and reliability that Olympic coverage demands, supporting seamless, multi-format delivery across a wide range of platforms.”

Comcast Technology Solutions has worked with NBC Sports for more than a decade, assisting its production efforts at previous Olympics and other major international sports events.

“We are proud to provide NBC Sports with the back-end video management capabilities needed to support their massive viewing audience, supported by Comcast Sports360 to enhance fan engagement with precision and efficiency at scale,” said Bart Spriester, senior vice president and general manager of streaming, broadcast, and advertising for Comcast Technology Solutions.

For additional information about Comcast Technology Solutions, visit: www.comcasttechnologysolutions.com.

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina 2026 programming.

TV Tech’s overall coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

DALLAS—NBCUniversal has announced that service members and veterans worldwide will once again enjoy free access to NBCUniversal’s full coverage of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, courtesy of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service and NBCU.

As part of the initiative, military members will be able to stream all the action from Italy using their personal devices and computers through ShopMyExchange.com. The Winter Olympics take place Feb. 6 through Feb. 22.

“Few events unify the world like the Olympic Games,” said Exchange director/CEO Tom Shull. “It is a privilege for the Exchange to offer this Quality-of-Life multiplier so the Games can be viewed wherever service members and their families are called to serve.”

This longstanding venture will feature more than 2,500 hours of the Winter Olympics across NBCUniversal’s streaming platforms. Throughout the Games, fans can watch more than 2,900 athletes from 92 countries and territories compete across 116 medal events. Live streams of select practice and warm-up sessions and extensive video content including event recaps, highlights, viral moments, interviews and more are included.

“We believe moments like the Olympic Games have a unique power to connect people across the world,” said Gary Zenkel, president, NBC Olympics. “We’re proud to work with the Exchange to help ensure service members and military families can experience the Winter Games—wherever they are serving our country.”

Viewers can access NBCUniversal’s coverage from their computers or personal devices by visiting NBCOlympics.com (desktop or mobile device) and the NBC Sports App (U.S. only) and choosing the Exchange as their service provider. To verify eligibility, an active ShopMyExchange.com account will be required. Content rights restrictions will also apply to OCONUS locations where on-base residents must subscribe to internet service through an authorized provider.

Additional information is available on the Exchange’s Olympic Hub page.

For more information on how to watch NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, click here.

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Sports has selected Sony Electronics to provide technology, including more than 100 cameras and nearly 500 monitors, as well as lenses, accessories, and on-site support for its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

NBC Sports will utilize Sony Electronics to deliver imaging, monitoring, and technical support for its production of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

At this year’s events, a range of Sony’s cameras featuring various form factors and capabilities will take center stage, including the HDC-series system cameras which will enable high frame rate capture and offer options with newly developed Variable Neutral Density filters, while the company’s pan-tilt-zoom and cinematic cameras will provide depth of field, and the use of Sony’s CNA-2 camera control network adapter will centralize multi-camera control, helping NBC Sports route the excitement in Italy back to viewers watching coverage of the Games in the United States.

“Like the Paris Olympics, NBC plans to use technology to both enhance storytelling, and give viewers at home deeper analysis; this time from thousands of miles away,” said Darryl Jefferson, senior vice president, engineering & technology, NBC Sports & Olympics. “This includes specific use of 2110 transport, teams of color experts shading Sony’s HDR cameras from a distance, enhanced PTZ robotic cameras, and support for our end-to-end BT-2020 HDR Workflow through production and our facility in Stamford. To make a finer point, converting the NBC Sports headquarters wholly to a mezzanine HDR format has been built on the continued partnership with Sony on high quality monitoring, color grading tools, and highly customizable remote production workflows.”

Sony Electronics has worked with NBC Sports for 24 years, assisting production efforts at previous Olympics and other major international sports events in Europe, Asia, and throughout the US.

“We are proud to once again partner with NBC Sports on their production of the Olympics and Paralympics, using Sony’s latest imaging technology to continue to push boundaries and elevate engagement in front of the camera and behind the scenes, together supporting the most innovative and entertaining presentation of the Games and helping to accurately capture the action, emotion, and competition for passionate fans,” said Neal Manowitz, president and COO, Sony Electronics.

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina 2026 programming.

TV Tech’s overall coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

STAMFORD, CONN.—NBC Sports has selected Appear to provide the X Platform for its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Feb. 6-22, and March 6-15, respectively.

NBC Sports will utilize Appear to deliver video compression, satellite modulation and transport stream aggregation for its production of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Appear’s X Platform will ensure flexible and reliable delivery of both fiber and satellite feeds in Cortina helping NBC Sports route the excitement in Italy back to viewers watching coverage of the Games in the United States.

“NBC Sports will rely heavily on Appear’s encoding, both for exceptional HDR video quality and efficient use of international bandwidth, and upload technology for Cloud transport. We can quite simply transport more cameras and video feeds across our enterprise than previously realized,” said Darryl Jefferson, senior vice president, Engineering & Technology, NBC Sports & Olympics. “And remote production is the cornerstone of the Milan Cortina venue coverage.”

Appear has worked with NBC Sports for five years, assisting NBC Sports’ production efforts at previous Olympics and other major international sports events in Europe, Asia, and throughout the U.S. at domestic events.

“NBC Sports’ selection of the X Platform to support coverage of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics extends our longstanding partnership and demonstrates how Appear technology leads the industry in delivering the reliable, flexible and high-quality live production capabilities that world-class broadcasters demand,” said Thomas Bostrøm Jørgensen, CEO, Appear.

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina 2026 programming.

TV Tech’s overall coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Sports has selected Canon U.S.A. to provide broadcast lenses for its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Feb. 6-22, and March 6-15, respectively.

(Editor’s note: NBC Olympics coverage begins Feb. 4 with early round coverage of curling. Opening Ceremony coverage begins Feb. 6 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Coverage details are available online.)

The Opening Ceremony from San Siro Stadium in Milan will be presented live and in primetime on NBC and Peacock on Feb. 6. NBCUniversal is presenting its 20^th Olympic Games, 13^th consecutive overall, and owns the U.S. media rights on all platforms to all Olympic Games through 2036, which are scheduled for Milan Cortina (2026), Los Angeles (2028), French Alps (2030), Brisbane (2032), Utah (2034), and the Olympic Games 2036 (host yet to be determined).

Besides the UHD lenses, Canon is also sending support staff to Italy making four service and support members available onsite of the Games.

“NBC Sports is proud to continue our longstanding partnership with Canon for the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympics Winter Games. Canon’s broadcast lenses and onsite support are integral to our commitment to delivering world-class coverage and immersive experiences for viewers. Their dedication to innovation and reliability helps us bring the excitement of the Games to life for millions of fans,” said Christopher Connolly, the broadcaster’s vice president of Sports & Olympics Engineering.

Canon has worked with NBC Sports for 35 years, assisting NBC Sports’ production efforts at previous Olympics and other major international sports events in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

“We are immensely honored that NBC Sports has once again selected our finest broadcast digital imaging solutions and chosen us as their dedicated broadcast lens provider for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics,” said Sammy Kobayashi, president and CEO, Canon U.S.A.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina 2026 programming.

TV Tech’s overall coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

STAMFORD, CONN.—NBC Sports has selected Chyron to provide technology for data-rich graphics for its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Feb. 6-22, and March 6-15, respectively.

NBC Sports will utilize Chyron PRIME CG to produce live broadcast graphics to display names, athlete information, scores, statistics, leaderboards, headshots and more for its production of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The full spectrum of top-tier design and data integration features in these Chyron technologies will be utilized, along with highly customizable playout Control Panels, enabling operators to display graphics and information quickly, accurately and on-brand throughout the Games in northern Italy, helping NBC Sports route the excitement back to viewers watching coverage of the Games in the United States.

“As we gear up for our coverage of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, we are continuing our long-standing partnership with Chyron, built on a foundation of reliability and innovation. The advanced capabilities of the Chyron Prime platform, from real-time graphics to creative studio elements, empower our design teams to enhance live coverage and analysis. Its integrated data feeds enable fast, meaningful storytelling that gives viewers at home a deeper understanding of just how extraordinary these performances are,” said Stacey Georgiou, vice president, production engineering at NBC Sports.

Chyron has worked with NBC Sports for over 20 years, assisting NBC Sports’ production efforts at previous Olympics and other major international sports events throughout the world.

“NBC Sports is not just a customer for us, but a strategic partnership that drives innovation,” states Chyron CEO Mike Truex, “and we are always excited to see those innovations driving content that delights the whole world at major events like the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.”

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina 2026 programming.

TV Tech’s overall coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBC Sports has announced it has selected Ross Video’s Rocket Surgery RSVP to provide virtual and augmented reality for broadcast services for its production of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Feb. 6-22, and March 6-15, respectively.

TV Tech’s coverage of NBC Sports' overall tech plans for the 2026 Winter Games can be found here, here and here.

NBC Sports will utilize Ross Video’s Rocket Surgery RSVP to deliver virtual and augmented reality in its production of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Rocket Surgery will showcase the combined creative strength of Ross Video, with on-site teams in Milan, Cortina, and Stamford, and deep collaboration with spidercam, helping NBC Sports bring the excitement of the Games in Italy back to viewers in the United States.

“The team at Rocket Surgery has always been there for us on our biggest productions around the world. Regardless of the ask or the timeline, this team delivers with enthusiasm and creativity and technical ability. NBC Olympics has always counted on Ross and the Rocket Surgery team to help us achieve our goals regardless of the venue or the country. We greatly look forward to partnering with them again on the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics,” said Michael Sheehan, coordinating director, NBC Olympics.

Ross Video’s RSVP has worked with NBC Sports for 10 years, assisting NBC Sports’ production efforts at previous Olympics and other major international sports events in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

“We’re thrilled to partner with NBC Sports for the Winter Games and to showcase the combined strength of Rocket Surgery and Spidercam. With teams in Italy and Stamford, we’re ready to deliver next-level AR experiences to audiences everywhere,” said Jim Doyle, vice president of creative services, Ross Video - Rocket Surgery.

PHILADELPHIA—Comcast’s cable operating brand Xfinity has detailed its plans to use a variety of new technologies and experiences to deliver what it is billing as NBCUniveral’s “most dynamic viewing experience” of the Olympic Winter Games.

The experiences are designed to showcase capabilities of the operator’s cable and broadband platform that greatly improve streaming, image quality, personalization and discovery in ways that its competitors can’t match.

“The Olympic Games capture the attention of the nation like no other sporting event, making them a perfect stage to showcase what Xfinity does best when it comes to live sports,” said Vito Forlenza, vice president of sports entertainment, connectivity and platforms, Comcast, which owns NBCU. “By uniting our most exciting features and advanced technologies on top of our superior network, we’re creating the ultimate viewing experience that lets fans choose how they want to engage with all the excitement coming out of Milan Cortina.”

During the games, Fan View, Multiview, and RealTime4K new technologies will be making their Olympic debuts.

With thousands of hours of coverage across NBC, USA Network, CNBC and Peacock, Xfinity’s Fan View is the easiest way to find and watch the action, no matter where it’s airing. The on-screen companion brings the most advanced features together, allowing fans to personalize, navigate, and control how they watch without ever taking their eyes off the big screen.

Fan View allows customers to:

• • Select their favorite Olympic sports, automatically creating a customized viewing experience based on those selections.
• • Find live programming, highlights, the latest medal counts, scores, competition stats, and the daily schedule – all in one place.
• • Launch flyover tours of the key sporting venues in and around Milan- – including ski slopes, snowboarding halfpipes, and the bobsled track – to immerse themselves in the beauty and spectacle of the host country.

Another major new feature is Multiview. Fans can watch up to four channels of NBCUniversal’s coverage at the same time with Xfinity Multiview - no flipping required.

Plus, with the new “Create Your Own Multiview,” fans can customize their multiview experience by choosing the channels they want to watch - whether that is all four channels airing Olympics coverage, two channels airing their favorite events, or a mix with other live sports.

In terms of 4K coverage, Xfinity customers can enjoy USA Network’s coverage of the Winter Olympics with its new RealTime4K technology. Delivered to the home over Xfinity’s network just seconds behind the action in Milan Cortina, RealTime4K offers stunning contrast, brilliant colors and lifelike detail with Dolby Vision and an immersive audio experience with Dolby Atmos.

Xfinity is also launching a dedicated Peacock 4K channel on Super Bowl Sunday, so customers can lean back and enjoy NBCUniversal’s coverage of two of the biggest sporting events of the year, the Milan Olympics and the Super Bowl LX, with RealTime4K technology, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Available within the channel guide on Xfinity X1 and the Xfinity Stream app, the channel will air live Olympics coverage in the morning before shifting to Super Bowl LX programming - including the pregame, halftime, and postgame shows - and then returning to Milan Cortina for special Primetime and late-night coverage on NBC and Peacock.

During the games, viewers will also be able to catchup with AI-powered highlights.

Available on DVR recordings of NBC’s daytime and primetime coverage, AI Highlights automatically tags key moments like competitions, interviews, studio analysis, and medal ceremonies so fans can quickly catch up on the biggest action of the day without sifting through the entire recording.

Highlights Zone offers a curated collection of short-form video playlists featuring top highlights, features, interviews, and trending clips from all 16 Olympic sports so customers can relive every top moment of the Games. Customers who personalize their viewing experience with their favorite sports will also find a special playlist curated just for them, focusing on the sports they care about most.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—NBCUniversal and Roku have announced the launch of the 2026 NBC Winter Olympics Experience, a dynamic destination delivering NBCUniversal’s comprehensive CTV coverage of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, from Feb. 6 to Feb. 22.

Launched on Feb. 2, the dedicated hub is designed to make finding and watching Olympic programming effortless for Roku viewers, with access to live events including the Opening Ceremony, highlights, clips, and more. For the first time, viewers can set reminders to receive mobile notifications when events begin.

“Following the tremendous fan reaction and embrace of our experience for NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Paris Olympics experience, Roku is once again putting millions of viewers front and center for one of the biggest sports moments of the year, with everything from figure skating and hockey to curling in one immersive destination,” said Joe Franzetta, head of sports, Roku Media. “Roku’s continued collaboration with NBCUniversal will deliver the excitement of the Games straight to your living room, so you can catch every must‑see moment.”

With Milan and Cortina, Italy, in the same time zone as Paris, France, the programming plan for the 2026 Winter Games will be similar to NBCUniversal’s massively consumed and critically acclaimed coverage of the Paris Olympics in 2024, including:

• The entire Olympics streaming live on Peacock
• An enhanced Olympics primetime show, “Primetime in Milan,” featuring top events, stars, and stories
• Comprehensive coverage across numerous cable and digital platforms
• Return of “Gold Zone” and Multiview on Peacock

Click here for more on NBCUniversal’s Milan Cortina programming.

The Olympics destination will feature more than 2,500 hours of programming available to Roku users with a Peacock subscription. Fans on Roku can track their country’s progress with the interactive Medal Count presented by Delta and explore personalized viewing options for each live event. Roku is also bringing the spirit of the Olympic Village to Roku City, creating a playful winter escape that invites fans to step inside the magic of the Games.

Sponsors for the destination include American Honda (Honda and Acura), Carnival Cruise Line, Delta, Xfinity, and Visa.

The Opening Ceremony from San Siro Stadium in Milan will be presented on Friday, Feb. 6, live and in primetime on NBC and Peacock. NBCUniversal is presenting its 20th Olympic Games, 13th consecutive overall, and owns the U.S. media rights on all platforms to all Olympic Games through 2036, which are scheduled for Milan Cortina (2026), Los Angeles (2028), French Alps (2030), Brisbane (2032), Utah (2034), and the Olympic Games 2036 (host yet to be determined).

In addition, the NBC Winter Olympics Experience will be featured prominently on the Roku Home Screen and across multiple entry points on the platform, available exclusively in the U.S.

Talking to Karl Malone, senior director of audio engineering at NBC Sports and Olympics, about the sound he intends to capture and deliver during the Winter Games in Milan-Cortina reveals a passion and excitement for the event he hopes viewers will sense at home.

A critical part of making that happen will be the extensive use of immersive microphones to take advantage not only of the five speakers and subwoofer of a 5.1 surround mix, but also of four height channels dedicated to picking up mics elevated to capture a fuller soundscape and immerse the audience in the moment.

“It’s usually quite cold and potentially not too windy up there [in the starting hut of downhill skiing], but it’s isolated, and I think immersive mics are really going to give us that feeling of isolation,” said Malone, offering an example of how channel-based immersive audio will benefit the coverage of one event.

“How we mix these normally, you’ll never hear any crowd in the mix because it’s all about the athletes and their time and the focus on them, the zoom in on the eyes and listening to the audio,” he said. “You see the breath, and you hear the breath. Then, as they go down the hill and they’re vying for a world record, you start to bring in the crowd and immersive.”

Dolby Atmos and Audinate Dante
Delivering immersive audio leveraging 10 channels of Dolby Atmos audio will be a major priority for the network during the Games. “We have large 8.0—basically four height and four sort of lower-level—arrays that we will use for the general ambience at pretty much all venues just to get that larger immersive crowd sound whether indoors or outdoors,” Malone said.

“Then we have some smaller immersive mics as well, which are Dante-based,” he continued. “That’s a huge advancement in being able to get immersive audio into tighter spaces and also being able to do it on a single Ethernet cable, which is wonderful.”

Using Dante enables the A1s mixing coverage at the NBC Sports hub in Stamford, Conn., to control mics strategically positioned around venues in Milan-Cortina. Accessing the mics through a remote desktop, the A1s can not only operate them, but also steer pickup in real time, as necessary, from 4,000 miles away.

“One of our hopes is to get these types of mics into the starting houses of the downhill races where the venue is smaller,” he said, specifically identifying how he hopes sound will convey “the pressure and the tension of being very high and very alone on the top of a mountain.”

“You can feel it, and you have to be able to hear that, too,” Malone said.

Meanwhile Back in Stamford
NBC will use 14 control rooms in Stamford, four of which can be considered primary control rooms, he said. One will be used for primetime, a second for daytime coverage, a third for USA Network and a fourth for NBC’s “Gold Zone,” its whip-around streaming coverage on Peacock, presenting the most exciting action from various venues. Each primary control room will handle 5.1.4 immersive mixes.

The remaining control rooms in Stamford are what the network refers to as “venue control rooms,” used to mix audio for ice hockey, cross-country skiing, speed skating, Alpine sliding, aerials and moguls, as well as at the Olympics Snow Park, where freestyle skiing and snowboarding will take place.

“Those control rooms act like trucks, feeding into a master audio control room where they’ll take the eight channels of immersive height information and mix that down into four,” Malone said. “So, it’s a finished product in 5.1.4.”

For this year’s Games, the network is giving its editors in Stamford the ability to edit 16 channels, not simply 5.1 surround. “Ultimately, you want those 16 channels to go back into a control room so that the A1 can play it back as live and have access to those eight channels of height microphones to be able to mix down into four channels,” Malone said.

“We championed the ability to maintain that whole 16-channel workflow through the building—from the venue all the way through edits and then back to a live control room,” he said. “That’s pretty important.”

There will be two exceptions to this remote integration model (REMI) workflow, however: the opening ceremony and figure skating.

U.S. viewers and the network regard figure skating as a “top-tier sport,” Malone said, and as such, NBC wants to have more production personnel on site.

“They [NBC Olympics reporters and talent] have more access to athletes,” he said. “It’s a bigger production with more cameras and more NBC cameras. There are more NBC microphones. It’s just bigger.”

The same is true of the opening ceremony, so both will be produced from an on-site mobile unit.

Distribution to Various Platforms
Audio from Stamford will be handed off as discrete 5.1.4 PCM to be encoded to Dolby Atmos and delivered to Comcast, Peacock, multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) partners and the network itself. At that point, the network will remove the height channels for distribution to affiliates. “All of the NBC O&Os will get AC-4 [the codec used by Dolby Atmos and integral to ATSC 3.0],” Malone said.

“What we did for Paris [2024 Summer Olympics] is they [the owned-and-operated stations] took our network 1080i and up-res-ed it to 1080p HDR with Dolby Vision and Atmos for NextGen [TV],” Malone said, adding that some affiliates transmitting NextGen TV will do the same this time.

“The AC-4 pipe has already been laid out to NBC O&Os,” he said. “It’s really testing the pipe at this stage, and we’ve done very successful AC-4 tests with both immersive AD [audio description]—being able to take audio description and present that in a 5.1.4 presentation.”

To ensure its 5.1.4 immersive audio presentation is available to Peacock subscribers, the streaming service has conducted extensive testing of home devices, such as Roku boxes, Amazon Fire TV Sticks and others, to ensure glitch-free decoding and presentation, Malone said.

“That’s why it took a long time in my mind for Peacock to go immersive,” he said. “It’s because there are the creatives, including me, saying: ‘We’re ready to do this creatively. We can give you 5.1.4.’ But Peacock had to test every single device. They aren’t going to launch without making sure everything is right.”

Planning for the 2026 Winter Games started right after the Summer Olympics, with the goal of one-upping NBC’s award-winning coverage of the Paris Games.

“You don’t sit on your laurels,” Malone said. “You think: ‘What can we do better? How can we engage the audience more? How can we tell the story our directors and producers want to tell?’”

For the Milan-Cortina Games, when it comes to audio, the answer is clearly immersive.

NBC Sports is celebrating what it calls “Legendary February,” hosting three marquee sporting events expected to attract record viewership. The action begins with the opening ceremony from Milan, Italy, when the XXV Winter Olympic Games commence on Feb. 6. Two days later, the network will air the Super Bowl and, a week later, the NBA All-Star Game.

Planning for such a confluence of events isn’t easy, but NBC Sports has plenty of experience in handling crowded programming schedules, particularly when it comes to the Olympics, which it has televised for nearly 30 consecutive years.

Record Number of Hours Expected
The 2026 Winter Olympics, officially “Milano Cortina 2026,” will take place in the cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Feb. 6-22, and feature about 2,900 athletes across 16 sports. NBC promises more than 3,000 hours of coverage across all of its platforms (including NBC, USA Network, CNBC, Peacock, NBCOlympics.com, and the NBC Sports app), with nearly 200 hours of coverage on NBC alone.

Darryl Jefferson, senior vice president of engineering and technology for NBC Olympics and Sports, will oversee broadcast operations to ensure the most comprehensive coverage of what the International Olympic Committee said is “the most geographically widespread Winter Olympics in history,” spanning an area of more than 22,000 square kilometers (over 8,500 square miles).

Although this is the first Winter Games with Jefferson at the helm—he succeeds Dave Mazza, who retired in 2023—Jefferson is a longtime veteran of NBC Olympics, joining in 2008 as director of postproduction.

And while the team had nearly two years between the Paris Games and the 2026 event, that was not the case for the last Winter Games in Beijing in 2022, when NBC Olympics had only about a six-month window between the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Summer Games, held in the fall of 2021, and Beijing.

Geographic Sprawl
The biggest challenge for Milan-Cortina 2026 is the aforementioned geographic sprawl, Jefferson said. For example, the distance from the Olympic hub in Milan to the competition venues is measured in multiple hours, with the skating venue approximately five and a half hours away and the men’s and women’s alpine skiing venues three hours apart.

With most of the country’s municipalities opting to use existing facilities instead of constructing new purpose-built operations for the 16-day event, locations are not always optimal.

“That’s one of the reasons why all of our venues are so geographically spread out,” he said. “They’re well-established and beautiful, but they are further apart than we’ve ever seen before, so we had to build a plan that looked at very geographically disparate venues.

“In so many Olympic cities of the past, you’d go into the Olympic hub and you’d have a number of venues that are clustered together,” he added. “Here, a lot of the venues are far apart, so we had to rethink deployment of people and gear. We’ve come up with a very good plan for doing all of those things, but we honestly had to throw out the old book.”

Nevertheless, it’s not like this is abnormal for a world-class event. “It is spread out, but that’s the Olympics for you,” Jefferson added.

With such a dispersed physical layout, particularly in rural areas, moving personnel and gear to venues is paramount, Jefferson said. The NBC team learned a lot while producing live coverage of sporting events during a pandemic, he said, with much of the coverage originating from the NBC facilities in Stamford, Conn.

“We learned a lot of valuable lessons with the ‘COVID Olympics’ in Tokyo and Beijing in that we still had a good deal of production on site in Tokyo—we had the primetime show and the control rooms in the IBC [International Broadcast Center] in Tokyo and Beijing; all of those things ended up coming home,” Jefferson said. “So a lot of those ‘lessons learned’ were about, ‘What can we do to maintain the high level of production value doing it from Stamford?’ And then, when COVID lifted, we tried to strike the balance of the teams that were on-site for Paris and the might of having a big broadcast facility in Stamford and pushing it to its limits.”

Staying Connected
NBCUniversal hadn’t finalized its format plans for the two weeks of the Games by presstime, however with Sunday Feb. 8 being part of “Legendary February,” the network is presenting the Super Bowl as well as the Games live all day in 4K HDR on NBC and Peacock­—17 hours of 4K HDR coverage in all. This marks the first time the Olympics and Super Bowl are being presented in 4K HDR on NBC and Peacock, according to the network.

Jefferson noted NBCUniversal’s commitment to capturing all the action in the highest available quality for any platform.

“Like in Games past, and particularly like in Paris, we will capture and produce everything everywhere in 1080p/HDR, and we’ll have deliverables for a number of platforms, both linear and Peacock [NBCU’s streaming service] in 4K HDR as well,” he said. “We’re fairly committed to HDR and 4K deliverables.”

These data-hungry formats require ever-more-increasing bandwidth between the Olympic host city and Stamford.

“In Paris, we had four 100-gig circuits and two 10-gig circuits for ancillary data and we will have the same for Milan-Cortina,” Jefferson said. “The difference between the Summer and Winter Games is that the Summer Games have so many more concurrent sports, but from a technology and connectivity perspective, we won’t take a step backwards. The connectivity we’ll use for Milan-Cortina will echo what we used in Paris, which is kind of almost unfathomable, because there’s so many fewer sports.”

And, as in years past, NBC Olympics will work as a mostly SMPTE-2110 IP-based operation, according to Jefferson. “We still have some bits and pieces that are SDI, but we’re getting our primary feed from Olympic Broadcasting Service at the International Broadcast Center in 2110,” he said. “The core technology in the Stamford facility is 2110—that’s our preferred method of exchange, but you still get outliers out there that are SDI in nature, and we appreciate them as well.”

Stamford is playing an ever-increasing role in coverage, Jefferson added.

“All but one venue is being largely produced in Stamford for this Winter Games, which is a sea change,” he said. “Figure skating production will be wholly produced on-site, with the production team facilities on-site. Every other venue is a split production.”

Using Data to Tell a Story
Since winter sports are not as popular in the United States as in other areas of the world, Jefferson said NBC Olympics will use more data to enlighten viewers on the intricacies of sports they usually see only once every four years.

“Using technology to describe through data use and visualization is really cool, because it gives people the awe-inspiring things that we see athletes do,” he said. “So we’re using data in a lot of ways to present things like rotational velocity or height, the types of things to get people to really understand, like, ‘Holy crap, that’s really remarkable!’

“One of our biggest partners is the OBS partner, Omega [the official Olympics timekeeper], but we have a bunch of other partnerships looking at computer vision analysis, relative speed, jump height, this type of thing, to explain better, and some of those things are internal to help our commentators explain,” he continued. “So we get to tell the story a bit better.”

The content-creator community will also play an important role in Olympics coverage, with increased mobile device use, Jefferson added. “In Paris, OBS used a fleet of mobile phones to cover the athlete experience on the boats coming into and up the Seine [during the opening ceremony],” he said. “I think it will be a similar offering this go, in addition to all the broadcast cameras. There’s a multiplier effect with all those mobile devices in and around the fields of play, behind the scenes and so on.”

Jefferson said he’s excited about NBC’s ability to give viewers a better understanding of the history of the host country, whether it’s in San Siro Stadium, where the opening ceremony will be staged, or at a remote sports venue.

“There are two very different Italys being presented—you have a very metropolitan city with the vision of the Duomo [cathedral] in the city center and all that goes with the fashion and the architecture and all that stuff in Milan,” he said. “And then, on the other hand, you have the unbelievably gorgeous Dolomites backing these small, quaint ski towns.

“And that dichotomy will be presented not just at the opening ceremony, but throughout the whole Games,” he added. “So it will be amazing to present those two Italys to the United States.”

The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics promises to be momentous both on screen and behind the scenes, in terms of new technologies and the consumer viewing experience. As Team USA heads to Milan with high hopes for its strongest performance in decades, NBC, Peacock and Comcast are readying a host of new technology and viewing experiences that they hope will strengthen, if not reverse, challenges to their business models that have been years in the making.

Addressing those challenges is particularly important for Comcast NBCUniversal, which spent some $7.75 billion for the U.S. rights to the Olympics between 2022 and 2032 and another $3 billion to extend those rights through 2036.

“The Olympics in Paris proved the Olympics are back and remain an unrivaled media property,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said at a press event, where he noted that NBCUniversal had already sold out its ad inventory for the Winter Games. “We expect Milan…to carry on that legacy…[by] mimicking and building on” NBC’s successful strategy for the Paris Olympics, he said.

Stemming the Decline
How well Comcast and NBCUniversal deliver on that promise will have a major impact on both its traditional and newer streaming and digital businesses.

For its part, NBC is hoping to kick-start the celebration of its 100th anniversary this year by reversing recent Winter Olympics viewing declines. Average total audience hit a record low in 2022 of 11.4 million for the Beijing Winter Olympics, down from the average audience of 19.8 million that viewed the Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018 and only a quarter of the 45.6 million who watched the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

The Games will also be crucial for Versant, owner of NBCU’s recently spun-off cable networks. Both USA Network, which will focus on Team USA with “Enhanced 4K” Dolby Vision and Atmos feeds, and CNBC will carry Olympics programming.

Similarly, Peacock, which will stream every event of the Games—around 3,000 hours of Olympics coverage—will look to solidify its stature as a major source of sports programming while the streamer’s owner, Comcast, will use the Games to lure back pay TV subscribers and fend off increased competition from 5G wireless carriers by highlighting the cross-platform capabilities of its video platform and its fast, low-latency broadband network.

“We know that the customers who still have a pay TV service are, by and large, huge sports fans,” Vito Forlenza, vice president of sports and entertainment at Comcast, said. “So, we are really focusing on sports to showcase the technology we have. When you can blend linear TV and streaming together into a seamless experience, you’re offering something that is really hard to replicate on a streaming box or a fixed wireless connection.”

Building on Paris
With NBC offering primetime coverage hosted by high-profile on-air talent, Peacock streaming all the events from 16 sports over 17 days, USA Network focusing on Team USA with 4K visuals and enhanced audio, and massive amounts of additional content available on CNBC, NBCSN and various digital offerings, one of the key issues facing the NBC Sports is finding ways to engage and not overwhelm viewers.

A major part of that consumer experience will be new production technologies. “Our mantra has been to make the best seat in the house even better,” Molly Solomon, executive producer and president, NBC Olympics Production, said. “This is going to be the most technologically advanced Olympics we’ve ever presented.”

That will include more extensive use of data analytics, live drones and mics on many athletes. “We will have mics on the U.S. men’s and women’s hockey players for the first time, and on freestyle, freestyle skiers and snowboarders,” Solomon said. “If you are a fan of snowboarding, you will hear Maddie Mastro give herself a pep talk at the top of the pipe.”

Less obvious will be improvements to the successful comprehensive cross-platform programming and tech strategy that was used during the Paris Olympics to provide viewers with many ways to interact and personalize their viewing experiences on TV, mobile and desktop.

“Customers have told us directly, ‘I love the Olympics, but there is so much of it I get overwhelmed,’” Forlenza explained. “There are customers who want to watch just about anything and some that want to watch specific events. All of them want us to make it as easy for me to get to an event I want to watch as quickly as possible…It doesn’t matter if you are streaming 3,000 hours on Peacock, if they can’t find the minute or two that they really want to watch right now.”

On a high level, that imperative is reflected in a cross-platform programming and tech strategy that worked so well in Paris. As with the Summer Games, all events will be streamed on Peacock and USA’s 4K feeds will focus on Team USA, while the high-profile primetime and late-night programming on NBC will dive into the day’s biggest stories and events.

Alternative Angles
Tying this wide array of programming together will be several new and returning digital tools that will help viewers find content, interact with stories of interest and personalize their experience.

One notable new experience will be “Rinkside Live on Peacock,” where users of the streaming service can access new camera angles for live coverage and behind-the-scenes shots of ice hockey and figure skating via a coach’s cam, a bench cam and other features, said Solomon.

Another notable digital tool is OLI, the AI-powered Olympic Guide that debuted in Paris and has been significantly upgraded for the Milan-Cortina Games. “This AI concierge will make following the games easier and more personalized than ever,” Jenny Storms, chief marketing officer, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, said. “It’s like having a friendly Olympics expert on call across 19 NBCUniversal websites and apps.”

The clearest expression of this cross-platform strategy of melding programming and tech to greatly improve viewer engagement will be found on the Comcast Xfinity platform.

As part of that effort, Xfinity will bring back and improve popular interactive features from the Paris Games like AI-powered highlights, as well as newer tools like Fan View, which brings together stats, personalized playlists, live scores, athlete profiles, advanced DVR capabilities and betting odds, and Multiview, which lets viewers watch up to four different feeds at the same time.

“We are able to blur the lines between traditional TV and streaming to the point where it doesn’t matter if your favorite event is on broadcast or streaming on Peacock,” Forlenza said. “We’ll have a full and seamless integration of Peacock into our Olympic experience and wrap it all together with tons of interactivity.”

“The core of our business is coupling video, broadband and mobile,” he concluded. “We will be bringing all of that together to provide an unsurpassed experience that others can’t offer and fixed wireless can’t support.”

NEW YORK—NBCUniversal will present a full day of 4K HDR live coverage on Feb. 8 of the Super Bowl LX and the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games on NBC and Peacock.

The 17 hours of coverage starting at 7 a.m. ET marks the first time a Super Bowl and Olympic Games will be presented in 4K HDR on the NBC broadcast network and the Peacock streaming service.

The Feb. 8 begins with live Winter Olympics coverage starting at 7 a.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, followed by Super Bowl pregame coverage at noon ET, game coverage at 6:30 p.m. ET and finishes with Primetime in Milan beginning at approximately 10:45 p.m. ET – providing fans with 17 hours of 4K HDR coverage.

These technological firsts are part of what NBCUniversal is calling “Legendary February”, an unprecedented month of major sporting events on one network, with Super Bowl LX, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, and NBA All-Star Weekend.

“When you’re about to present the biggest month in U.S. sports media history, you want to make sure you’re giving fans the best experience possible – so that’s exactly what we have planned on NBC and Peacock for Super Bowl LX, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, and NBA All-Star Weekend,” said Rick Cordella, president, NBC Sports. “Building on NBC Sports’ long-standing commitment to innovation across all platforms, we’ll be celebrating the action on the field, slopes and court with our signature storytelling, state-of-the-art production, and dynamic streaming features that together bring these incredible sporting events to life for audiences at home.”

As part of Legendary February, Peacock will also debut fan-favorite feature Multiview in beta on mobile during the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and offer new sharing options for Olympic-related clips and mini-games.

In an industry first, Peacock’s popular Multiview feature will extend to mobile, launching in beta for the Winter Games. The four-box vertical display will showcase the top four events at any given time, as well as an event-specific Multiview for curling, all curated by NBC Sports producers. This builds on Peacock’s expansive experience for Legendary February that was previously announced, including Winter Olympics Highlights playlists in vertical video, the new feature Rinkside Live, mini-games and trivia.

In addition, for the first time, Peacock users will be able to share their favorite Winter Olympics Highlight clips and trivia and Prediction Game results with friends and family directly from mobile via text and social networks. The ability to share their wins creates an opportunity to spark friendly competition and foster connections – all while they are watching the world’s greatest sporting event unfold.

“Peacock is the first streamer to deliver major live sports at this scale, seamlessly presenting many simultaneous events, with millions of people coming to the platform at once, over several days,” said Patrick Miceli, CTO of NBCUniversal Media Group and Global Streaming. “This impressive performance is possible because of Peacock’s industry-leading infrastructure that supports unmatched reliability, especially under peak demand.”

Tech Highlights For Legendary February

NBC Sports also announced that its Super Bowl LX, which will be produced by Rob Hyland and Drew Escoff, an award-winning team who have worked on more than 10 Super Bowls combined, will use more than 80 cameras and 150 microphones, In addition, NBC will use new technologies like Weather Applied Metrics, which quantifies how past, present and future weather conditions impact the game. Fans will also see a new graphics package.

For the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, fans can expect richer storytelling through increased aerial coverage via the more-extensive use of live drones, behind-the-scenes audio from team radio stations – translated live in real-time using AI as needed, and more access to friends and family reactions, including heart rate monitors and corresponding onscreen graphics.

For the first time in over 20 years, NBC will produce NBA All-Star Weekend onsite in Los Angeles, with a focus on getting fans closer to the action than ever before. New camera angles include additional views of the rim, super-slo-mo capabilities on nearly every camera, SkyCam, and Nucleus Pico mini cameras mounted at floor level on the basket stanchion, along with the new Peacock feature Courtside Live.

NEW YORK—NBCUniversal has announced some notable new streaming capabilities that will be coming to Peacock for its coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics and NBA All-Star Weekend.

The new live streaming experiences, Rinkside Live and Courtside Live, are optimized for mobile and will be launched initially for coverage of ice hockey, figure skating and basketball. They allow fans to choose from multiple curated feeds of immersive, never-before-seen views, while still keeping track of the main action.

Additionally, Peacock will offer new Olympics-related games on its mobile app, including Prediction Games for figure skating and ice hockey; a daily Olympics Picks game spanning multiple events; and Olympics trivia, available from Jan. 24-Feb. 23.

“Given NBCU’s breadth of marquee sports this February, we’re offering Peacock users new, fun ways to engage and watch on their terms, with unprecedented access to moments they’ve never seen before and stand-out audio and picture quality,” said Jim Denney, chief product officer, Global Streaming and NBCUniversal Media Group. “From behind-the-scenes access as athletes prepare for competition to unique perspectives, Rinkside Live and Courtside Live put fans in control and take them deeper into the sports they love to celebrate, and the culture and stories that surround them.”

As the comprehensive U.S. streaming home of the Olympics, Peacock will present thousands of hours of NBC Sports’ coverage of the Winter Games from Feb. 6-22 through a dedicated Olympics hub tailored to both avid and casual fans and building on its mission to deliver innovative, immersive, fan-first experiences, the streamer reported.

New on Peacock for Milan Cortina 2026 is Rinkside Live, a first-of-its-kind offering that will amplify the streaming experience of two marquee sports, ice hockey and figure skating, to include new angles for some of the biggest moments of the Olympics. During select events, curated camera angles on Peacock on mobile will give fans the unique vantage point of live, behind-the-scenes footage of athletes’ Olympics moments. On TV and web, fans will be able to view these same curated angles in a Multiview experience, the streaming platform reported.

For select figure-skating events, camera options will include “Coaching Cam,” which will offer a view of each skater’s coaching area, and “Training Room,” captured by a fitness cam and revealing the intensity and emotion of elite athletes preparing for their Olympic moment.

Ice hockey fans can experience “Bench Cam” for select games, which will stay locked on each team’s bench throughout play to capture player reactions and heated rivalries, including real-time celebrations of goals.

Rinkside Live will also offer a “Highlights Hub” for ice hockey and figure skating, delivering vertical video playlists of Winter Olympics Highlights to fans tuning in on mobile, so they can catch up on key moments.

In addition to the newly announced features, the streaming platform reported that popular features from Peacock’s award-winning Paris Olympics experience will return for the Milan Cortina Games, including Gold Zone, Discovery Multiview, Live Actions, in-page sports hubs, interactive schedule, medal standings and expanded search.

Peacock’s Live in Browse feature and real-time Winter Olympics Highlights in vertical video, which both launched last year, will be available for live events during the Olympics. The new Olympics mini-games on the Peacock mobile app will include specific Prediction Games for figure skating and ice hockey; a daily Olympics Picks game spanning multiple events each day; and Olympics trivia, which will feature questions about athletes, sports and the history of the Olympics.

First announced last year, Courtside Live is a new NBA viewing experience available on TV and mobile that brings fans into the arena and connects them with the culture around the league. Courtside Live will debut during the 2026 NBA U.S. vs World All-Star Game on Feb. 15 at 5 p.m. (ET)/2 p.m. (PT), the game’s first U.S. vs. World format, and will be available for select NBA games throughout the rest of the season. On mobile, fans can navigate between a selection of curated feeds of alternate game angles. On TV and web, Courtside Live will show those same available angles in a multiview experience.

During the live games, fans can navigate between “Star Spotlight,” highlighting standout players on the court, and “Home Team” or “Away Team” views that will focus on each bench to catch player reactions.

“Hot Highlights” will curate moments from the game and beyond, showcasing key plays, as well as the culture of the league, from tunnel looks to interviews to celebrity fans in the stands.

For NBA All-Star Weekend Feb. 13-15, fans will be able to enjoy many of the features that launched for the NBA’s debut on Peacock, including Can’t Miss Highlights, Peacock ScoreCard, Live in Browse, and Catch Up with Key Plays.

Peacock features available during the Super Bowl on Feb. 8 will include Catch Up With Key Plays and Live Actions, so football fans can easily follow the action of the Big Game and discover other content across Peacock.

NEW YORK—With one month until the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, NBCUniversal has announced that it has officially sold out of its Olympic inventory and that it set a new Winter Games ad-sales record with more advertisers investing in the upcoming Games (Feb. 6-22) than ever before.

Milan Cortina 2026 is part of what the company is calling its "Legendary February" programming that also includes the Super Bowl (Feb. 8) and the NBA All-Star Game.(Feb. 15). The trifecta has generated extraordinary demand from advertisers leading to sell out across all three tentpole moments, the company reported.

"With the resurgence of the Olympic movement, our strongest Sports Upfront in history, the early sellout of Super Bowl LX and the remarkable return of the NBA, NBCUniversal has solidified itself as a sports powerhouse and brands have taken notice,” said Mark Marshall, chairman, Global Advertising and Partnerships, NBCUniversal. “Our partners have not only seen the power of the NBC Sports portfolio, but also the incredible results our robust sports programming delivers, which is why our company now sits in its strongest position ever for a Winter Games and is kicking off 2026 officially sold out of all our Legendary February programming."

NBCU said that following the massive success of the 2024 Paris Olympics, brands were more eager than ever to commit to the Milan Cortina Games, with more than 100 new advertisers. As a result, the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics produced the highest linear and digital revenue in Winter Games history.

Over 85% of brand partners are investing in Milan Cortina digitally and advertiser adoption of Peacock’s ad innovations has grown 31% from Paris 2024 to Milan Cortina. Additionally, nearly 60 advertisers have invested in unique marketing elements, up 174% from Beijing 2022. More than a dozen brands are investing in sponsorships to offer more live sports viewing to fans, NBCU said, up 75% from Paris 2024.

Peter Lazarus, executive vice president NBC Sports and Olympics, Advertising and Partnerships, added: “The upcoming Winter Games, surrounded by Super Bowl LX and NBA All-Star Weekend, will captivate a highly engaged and passionate audience at scale in a way that no other media company can for advertisers. For the first time in our company's history, we have seen such unprecedented demand that we are officially sold out of our inventory this far in advance of a Games. We are excited to once again deliver to fans a world-class viewing experience while providing brands with the powerful halo effect the Olympics has to offer.”

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STAMFORD, Conn.—NBCUniversal is bringing back OLI, its AI-powered Olympics discoverability tool with enhanced features designed to help fans navigate thousands of hours of its coverage of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics (Feb. 6-22).

First introduced during the 2024 Paris Olympics, OLI is now powered by Google Cloud’s Gemini LLM. The guide is designed to combine the conversational power of generative AI with NBCU’s proprietary, real-time U.S. programming information to help fans discover when, where and how they can watch their favorite events. Coverage on NBC and Peacock, the primary platforms for the Games, begins with the opening ceremony on Feb. 6.

OLI will be available across 19 NBCU-owned digital properties, including NBCOlympics.com, NBCSports.com, NBC.com, Today.com, NBCNews.com, regional sports networks, and 11 local stations, with the upgraded experience launching on January 20.

The upgraded version will deliver a more natural and collaborative experience that gives fans deeper context and makes it easier than ever to connect with Olympic moments that matter most to them, NBCU said. The upgraded OLI tool was developed in partnership with design and technology company Huge.

A demo of how OLI will guide fans and simplify the viewer experience so viewers never miss a second of the action is available below:

“Our goal with OLI on NBCUniversal’s digital platforms is to help fans find up-to-the-minute answers to their Olympics questions, and to help them quickly get to the thousands of hours of coverage we have across NBC and Peacock,” said Jenny Storms, chief marketing officer, Entertainment and Sports, NBCUniversal. “With OLI’s new capabilities, we’re transforming it beyond a discovery tool into a true viewing guide. From real-time medal counts and athlete profiles to personalized highlights and calendar reminders, OLI ensures fans can easily connect with the Olympic moments that matter most.”

With personalized recommendations and tailored viewing options based on time of day, time zone and live schedule, OLI will have several new features including live medal count updates by country; athlete profiles with bios and event details; video highlights based on user preferences; calendar invites that can be added directly from OLI; and suggested follow-up queries to discover new sports, athletes and Olympic content. OLI also includes links to help users get right to watching on NBC or Peacock.

As NBC Sports presents “Legendary February,” a month of sports programming including the Milan-Cortina Games, the Super Bowl and the NBA All-Star Game, OLI will share programming details with fans about Super Bowl Sunday and NBA All-Star Weekend in addition to Olympics coverage.

NBCUniversal owns the U.S. media rights to the Olympic Games through 2036, which are scheduled for Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy (2026); Los Angeles (2028); the French Alps (2030); Brisbane, Australia (2032); Utah (2034); and the as-yet-unawarded 2036 Summer Games.

NEW YORK—NBCUniversal has announced that it will be launching NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), a 24/7 linear network featuring a wide range of marquee sporting events and programming from NBC Sports, on Monday, Nov. 17.

The launch revives a channel brand the company shut down in 2021 with the same name but a different, expanded programming mix and a new business strategy that aims to strengthen pay TV revenues.

The company plans to distribute NBCSN exclusively through participating pay-TV distributors. NBCU said the network will feature live games across major sports, giving pay-TV customers a way to enjoy much of NBCUniversal’s extensive sports portfolio that also streams on Peacock.

YouTube TV will be first to carry the network. It will soon be available on Comcast’s Xfinity, with other distributors to be announced at a later date.

This could provide pay TV operators with a way to attract sports fans from Peacock and boost pay TV carriage revenue. But it could also hurt ongoing efforts to expand the streaming services subscriber base.

“NBCUniversal delivers the biggest moments in sports, and the new NBC Sports Network gives pay-TV customers a seamless way to enjoy the wide range of sports in our portfolio, adding an important pillar in our linear and streaming strategy,” said Matt Schnaars, president, platform distribution and partnerships, NBCUniversal. “NBCSN is a win across the board—driving value for fans and distributors who prefer an aggregated experience, league and conference partners seeking broad reach and advertisers targeting engaged sports audiences—while also creating a new monetization path for some of our most premium programming and supporting NBCU’s commitment to serving viewers wherever they watch, whether on Peacock, pay-TV or both.”

NBCU said that events and programming on the new network will include:

• Monday Night NBA games and NBA Playoffs.
• Expected to include dozens of MLB regular-season and select post-season games in a soon-to-be-announced agreement.
• Premier League soccer matches.
• "Gold Zone" hosted by Scott Hanson (daily whip-around coverage for Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games in February 2026).
• WNBA Regular Season and Playoff games.
• Big Ten and Notre Dame Football.
• Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 Men’s and Women’s Basketball.
• Golf Majors (includes select coverage of U.S. Open and The Open Championship).
• Cycling (Tour de France, Tour de France Femmes; Vuelta a España, and more).
• Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks undercard races.
• Olympic Sports (e.g., Figure Skating, Ski & Snowboard, Gymnastics, Swimming, Track & Field).
• Popular shows, including “PFT Live,” “The Dan Patrick Show," “The Dan Le Batard Show,” and “Fantasy Football Happy Hour” with Matthew Berry.

To mark 100 days to go to the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Sports Europe is providing a first look at its purpose-built studios that will broadcast live coverage to millions of fans across Europe next February. The broadcaster also announced that all customers in Europe will be able to watch every live event during the Games on HBO Max and discovery+.

During the event, which takes place Feb. 6-22 at Milano Cortina, Italy, WBD will broadcast from the heart of the action in the Nations Village, Cortina d'Ampezzo. A unique studio housed over two floors will serve Eurosport’s pan-European production with dedicated sets for Italy, Germany, Norway and Poland primed to deliver local language shows. The set will be framed with large “virtual” windows, enabling even deeper analysis of different sports, the broadcaster said.

WBD also previewed an extensive lineup of programs leading up to the Games, including six episodes of “Looney Tunes Presents: Sports Made Simple," which recruits famous animated WB characters including Bugs Bunny, to promote the event to younger audiences.

Going beyond its premium linear coverage on Eurosport across Europe and TNT Sports in the UK and Ireland, for the first time, WBD’s streaming platforms will provide in-app innovations including key moment markers that will enable users to easily scroll back so no action is missed. Furthermore, gold medal alerts will ensure viewers can watch unmissable Olympic stories unfold, and additional features will allow subscribers to select up to 20 commentary languages and having the ability to follow specific sports throughout the Games.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is the home of the Olympics in Europe and is an official broadcaster in 49 markets. It has shown the Olympics since Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 after securing the rights in 2015. WBD has partnered with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to obtain the live rights for the next four Olympics – covering Milano Cortina 2026; LA 2028; French Alps 2030 and Brisbane 2032.

Approximately 156 million Europeans watched WBD Discovery's coverage of the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK—LA28, Team USA and NBCUniversal have announced a wide-ranging sponsorship deal with Google that will make the tech giant a “founding partner” who will deliver consumer and enterprise solutions to enhance the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics experience for fans and athletes.

“This partnership is a testament to our commitment to innovation and delivering a technologically advanced, engaging and digitally accessible Games when we welcome the world in 2028,” said LA28 chairperson and president Casey Wasserman. “Google’s suite of products and tools will support our vision for uplifting the athlete, fan and workforce experience, and ultimately make it easier for attendees to navigate venues, share their experiences, and stay informed in real time.”

As part of the agreement, Google will be named as the Official Cloud Provider of the 2028 Summer Olympic Games. In addition, a wide range of Google technologies, including Google Search, Google Cloud and advanced AI tools like Gemini will be used by LA28, Team USA and NBCU to improve the fan experience for the games.

Using AI, NBCU and Google reported they will be providing fans with new ways to search for information during NBCUniversal’s coverage of the first Olympic and Paralympic Games in the U.S. in 26 years.

NBCUniversal will also partner with YouTube to provide fans with select content around the Games, serving as an extension of NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, they reported.

"With tools like Gemini and new Google Search features like AI Mode, it's easier than ever for people to find the information they’re looking for, no matter how simple or complex,” said Marvin Chow, vice president of marketing, Google. “Our partnership with LA28, Team USA, and NBCUniversal builds on our successful collaboration from last summer, making the Olympic and Paralympic Games more personal and interactive for fans with the help of AI.”

“For decades, Google has been a leading force in innovation and technology and now they are bringing that pioneering spirit to the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” added Mark Marshall, chairman, global advertising and partnerships, NBCUniversal. “Through this exciting new partnership, we will combine their cutting-edge technology with NBCU’s premium content and passionate community to deliver a world-class viewing experience for fans of all ages on all of our platforms.”

WASHINGTON—Following an Executive Order issued by President Donald Trump that appointed Federal Communications Commission Chair Brandan Carr to a White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics, Carr issued a statement saying the regulatory agency is already at work on spectrum management and other issues related to the games.

“I want to express my thanks and appreciation to President Trump for the opportunity to join the White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics,” Carr said. “The 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles offers an opportunity to showcase America’s athletic excellence and the patriotism of our great nation. To get there and to fully realize this opportunity, a lot of work needs to take place – including here at the FCC. In keeping with the President’s action today, the FCC will bring our expertise to bear to meet the spectrum needs and other operational requirements of this historic event. I look forward to working with the Task Force and all stakeholders to deliver on the President’s goal of making this one of the most successful sporting events in history. The FCC’s talented staff have already been hard at work, and today’s Executive Order recognizes their important contributions.”

The FCC noted that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be one of the largest sporting events ever hosted in the United States, bringing together over 50 sports, 800+ events, and more than 3,000 hours of live action across more than 40 venues around Los Angeles, southern California, and Oklahoma City.

The scale of the Games raise a number of critical issues relating to spectrum management given the large crowds and fact that many wireless devices will be operating simultaneously within the RF spectrum during the games. These devices include critical applications such as timing apparatus for events, radio communications for event coordination and security, and broadcast operations that are vital to seamless, world-wide, coverage and the overall success of the Games, the agency said.

To address those issues the FCC said it will work alongside our Federal, state, and local partners, as well as the LA28 Olympic Committee and other stakeholders to help ensure robust, reliable communications and that its staff has been actively working with partners across the U.S. government and the LA28 Olympic Committee in preparation for the Games. These efforts are led by the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, with support the Enforcement Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, the Office of Engineering and Technology, and others, the agency said.

The Games also raise some questions about the potential impact of upcoming spectrum auctions that the FCC is planning and proposals for a sunset of ATSC signals in Feb. 2028 for the top 55 markets, which would include L.A.. In the past, broadcasters have argued that a cutoff date would allow them to offer many new features in their coverage. During the 2024 Olympics, broadcasters used 3.0 capabilities offer HDR and other features in 55 markets.

LOS ANGELES—Olympic Broadcasting Services said it is implementing technologically ambitious plans for production of the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics and Paralympics that will blend cutting-edge technologies and immersive camera systems to improve storytelling and provide deeper insights into athletes’ performance data.

A key part of that effort will see OBS shift to a fully internet protocol- and information technology-based infrastructure enabling flexible, cloud-integrated, virtualized workflows across venues. Other key focus areas of its tech plans include AI-driven content processing, expanded use of 5G and wireless systems for agile camera operations, and sustainable design practices aimed at reducing the overall broadcast footprint.

OBS unveiled its plans for Los Angeles at the OBS World Broadcaster Briefing, a gathering of Olympic and Paralympic media rights holders held from July 14-17. The Los Angeles Summer Olympics are set for July 14-30, 2028, with the Los Angeles Paralympics to follow from Aug. 15-27, 2028.

The meeting provided broadcasters from around the world who will televise the games an opportunity to meet in person, tour key competition venues and assess their proximity to the future International Broadcast Center while also reviewing the progress of Olympic preparations and discussing how the games will be covered.

In May, Los Angeles Rams owner E. Stanley Kroenke announced plans to develop a massive state-of-the-art movie studio and production facility called Hollywood Park Studios that will initially be used to host the IBC during the Los Angeles Games.

The facility is being developed as part of the 300-acre mixed-use destination in Inglewood, Calif., that includes SoFi Stadium, home to Kroenke’s Rams and the market’s other National Football League team, the Los Angeles Chargers.

As the host site of the IBC for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics, Hollywood Park Studios will house hundreds of media rights holders from around the world.

During the recent meeting with rights holders, OBS said the broadcasters visited SoFi Stadium, called 2028 Stadium for purposes of the Games, which will co-host the Opening Ceremonies along with the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and host swimming events in a reimagined configuration. The tour also visited the Inglewood Dome—known as the Intuit Dome when it hosts its regular tenants, the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers—which will host basketball.

Attendees also drove by the legacy buildings under construction for the IBC, located in Hollywood Park Studios in Inglewood. The tour then moved to Exposition Park Stadium—aka the pro soccer venue BMO Stadium—which will host the new Olympic sports of flag football and lacrosse, and the L.A. Coliseum, a venue for both the 1932 and 1984 Summer Games that will once again host Olympic and Paralympic track and field, as well as both events’ opening and closing ceremonies.

Broadcasters also previewed the Olympics gymnastics and Paralympics wheelchair basketball venue, DTLA Arena (known as Crypto.com Arena when hosting the NBA’s Lakers, WNBA’s Sparks and NHL’s Kings). The day concluded next door at the Los Angeles Convention Center, which will host a mix of Olympic and Paralympic sports including boccia, fencing and wheelchair fencing, taekwondo and para taekwondo, judo and para judo, wrestling, and table tennis and para table tennis, OBS said.

Rights holders also attended a session in downtown L.A. that included remarks from OBS CEO Yiannis Exarchos and LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover.

“In Los Angeles, the Olympic spirit is not just a tradition, it is part of the city’s DNA,” Exarchos said. “As a global hub of technology, storytelling, and sport, LA28 offers us an unparalleled opportunity. Together with our broadcast partners, we are committed to bringing bold ideas to life and redefining what it means to experience the Games—deeper, more connected, more human.”

NEW YORK—Despite widespread concerns about a soft advertising market, NBCUniversal said it closed its 2025-26 upfront negotiation cycle with a record ad sales volume.

The media giant said that sports and live events, the addition of the NBA, growth in Peacock, and advancements in technology were key factors in the record sales commitments overall.

It also reported that it delivered its largest digital upfront in history.

NBCU did not report specific numbers, aside from saying it brought in nearly $1 billion in programmatic investments alone for the 2025-25 upfront cycle.

More specifically, NBCU reported that three major tentpole events—the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl and Telemundo’s Spanish-language telecasts of the FIFA World Cup—drove additional record sales to the business for its 2025-26 upfront, outpacing all three of the property’s combined previous benchmarks.

“This year, we went to the market earlier than ever to strategically align our powerful content slate with our clients’ goals,” said Mark Marshall, chairman, Global Advertising and Partnerships, NBCUniversal. “The response has been extraordinary, and we are incredibly grateful for our partners’ trust and collaboration. In a year set to redefine industry benchmarks, ad-supported reach remains the most influential force in media —and no one delivers it like NBCU. With a cross-platform strategy supercharged by cutting-edge technology, we’re proud to engage 286 million people monthly—setting a new standard and delivering the most successful Upfront in our company’s history.”

The company also reported that with the addition of the NBA, NBCU delivered its strongest sports upfront in history, adding 20% new clients over last year and securing a 45% year-over-year increase in volume beyond the big three tentpoles. NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, Golf Channel and USA Network all benefited from the demand for sports, driving new clients and sports commitments for the properties.

In addition, with a renewed focus on live events in 2026, as well as the Spanish-language presentation of the FIFA World Cup, Telemundo has experienced its best upfront to date, already exceeding the revenue for the previous World Cup with over 10 months until kickoff.

On the digital front, NBCU reported that Peacock delivered its highest Upfront to date. The streamer has seen consistent year-over-year growth, driving over 20% YoY increase and now representing nearly one-third of NBCUniversal’s total upfront commitments, NBCU reported.

In addition, client demand for Peacock’s ad performance has propelled NBCUniversal’s strength in its overall digital footprint, leading to the company’s largest digital Upfront in history.

According to NBCU, other highlights included:

• The company reported a resurgence in broadcast across news, sports and entertainment, nearly 15% year-over-year driven in part by new opportunities with the NBA. Over 25% of NBCUniversal’s NBA advertisers will be new to broadcast this year.
• Bravo has continued to see steady growth over the past five years, representing nearly 20% of the company's entire entertainment demand across broadcast and cable.
• The portfolio of networks that represent Versant, Comcast's planned spinoff of cable news, sports and entertainment brands and digital businesses, saw nearly a 10% increase in client investment.
• The company generated 30% net-new small-medium business (SMB) clients this upfront cycle, signaling a shift in how this sector is prioritizing inventory in the upfront timeframe.
• Advertisers with NBCUniversal are increasingly moving beyond standard age and gender demos, with nearly 60% of investments now transacted on advanced audiences.
• NBCUniversal’s robust programmatic business—which has included sports and live events since 2023—continues to see strong demand, bringing in nearly $1B in programmatic investments alone for the 2025-26 upfront cycle.
• The company saw record revenue growth across key categories this upfront, including retail, restaurants, auto, travel and financial services—which all grew by about 12%. The marketplace strength in studios has fueled demand in the company’s studio-adjacent properties, including Fandango.
• In the 2025-26 Upfront negotiations, NBCUniversal sold the company's entire portfolio across linear and streaming under its One Platform banner. The company will continue to represent domestic Versant advertising inventory, including CNBC, E!, Golf Channel, MSNBC, Oxygen, Syfy, USA, and digital platforms, for the next upfront cycle.

INGLEWOOD, Calif.—Los Angeles Rams owner E. Stanley Kroenke has announced plans to develop a massive state-of-the-art movie studio and production facility called Hollywood Park Studios. The facility, which is being developed as part of the 300-acre mixed-use destination in Inglewood, Calif., will initially be used to host the International Broadcast Center during the 2028 Olympics in L.A.

As the host site of the International Broadcast Center (IBC) for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LA28), Hollywood Park Studios will house hundreds of media rights holders from around the world who have acquired the exclusive rights to distribute the coverage of the Games.

During the games, the IBC will offer broadcasters space for offices, studios and control rooms, as well as other services, that will be used to deliver broadcast and digital coverage of the event. Following the Games in 2028, HPS will be available for use for studio production and operations.

Construction on the facility is slated to start in late May.

"The vision for Hollywood Park has always been to build a city within a city combining media, entertainment and technology that will transform the greater Los Angeles area," said Kroenke. "We are thrilled to expand the role we will play in the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games by hosting the International Broadcast Center and the global media outlets who will call it home during that summer. Beyond 2028, Hollywood Park Studios will be open to welcome a new industry to our live, work, play destination and bring a little bit of Hollywood to Hollywood Park."

HPS is part of Hollywood Park's master development plan, focusing on media, entertainment, and technology (MET), anchored by SoFi Stadium, YouTube Theater, and the NFL Media office building. All MET facilities, including HPS, have on campus access to retail stores, restaurants, and a hotel, the developer reported.

Hosting the IBC is the latest element of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games which will take place at Hollywood Park. It was previously announced that SoFi Stadium will be converted into the largest Olympic Swimming venue in history during the Olympic Games and will host the Olympic Opening Ceremony together with the LA Memorial Coliseum, as well as the Opening Ceremony for L.A.'s first ever Paralympic Games in 2028.

"LA28 is proud to be the inaugural tenant of this new state-of-the-art studio in the heart of Inglewood, a key Venue City for the 2028 Games," said LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover. "The International Broadcast Center will serve as one of our first fully operational facilities for the Games, capturing every inspiring moment of the LA28 Games. We're excited to collaborate with our valued partners at Hollywood Park, the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), International Olympic Committee (IOC), and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to create a world-class broadcast hub that will showcase the best of Los Angeles to billions of viewers."

The first phase of Hollywood Park Studios will occupy 12 acres and will consist of five sound stages, each 18,000 square feet, two of which open to a single 36,000 square foot stage. In addition, HPS will have a three-story 80,000 square foot office building to support stage, production, and post-production activities. HPS will have a dedicated open base camp area, and a parking structure that can accommodate 1,100 cars. In addition, the ground level of the garage features a 20' high bay area to accommodate sixty trailers with power to support movie production activities. Finally, HPS will have mill facilities and will provide full equipment rental services, HPS reported.

The Hollywood Park campus provides for additional phased development of up to 20 build-to-suit stages and an additional 200,000 square feet of related office space with additional structured parking. The first phase and future development will be connected to the campus-wide fiber ring and power centers.

Global architecture and design firm Gensler spearheaded the design for HPS, Clayco will serve as the general contractor, and Pacific Edge as project manager, with financing arranged by Guggenheim Investments.

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.

Being granted coverage rights for the Olympics brings an array of benefits to a channel. The guaranteed interest from audiences, combined with the expanded possibilities with video content, provide an opportunity to create audience loyalty. Not to mention, it means little to no competition: In most countries, a couple of broadcasters are given the rights, in some only one.

For Paris 2024, the channels that shared the rights in Brazil were a surprising choice and yielded surprising results. TV Globo, the mega-conglomerate and leader in audience retention for the past 60 years, covered the Olympics through its SporTV channels—and so did CazéTV, created by streamer Casimiro Miguel with LiveMode in 2022.

It's no secret that Brazil is a leader in the creator economy. In fact, Brazil holds a 45% percent share of the near-$1 billion generated in the Latin American and Caribbean influencer-marketing market last year. Exemplified by the growth of CazéTV, gone are the days where we associated YouTuber tech with a simple digital vlogging camera. Now, it’s more like a TV channel itself but without network restrictions.

How To Account for CazéTV’s Rapid Success?
What the hosts of CazéTV propose to audiences is entirely different in tone than traditional broadcasters. While Brazilians are generally well-humored, informality and comedy are embedded into the CazéTV universe—similar in tone to “The Daily Show,” but a step further in informality. Presenters and guests dress in jeans and a T-shirt, with international correspondents wearing affable CazéTV branded merch.

The choice of guests and correspondents proves that for CazéTV, charisma comes first. From comedians to ex-professional sportsmen to a recognized journalist with an impressive background working for Globo, a variety of Brazilian personalities drive the live entertainment for the channel.

CazéTV is also, to some degree, growing in accessibility. According to UNESCO, the percentage of Brazilian households with access to the internet increased from 40% in 2020 to over 70% in 2022. It’s also important to note that the streamer’s content, which now holds over 16 million subscribers on YouTube, isn’t held behind a paywall.

Essentially, if you have an internet connection and you’re in Brazil, you can watch CazéTV in your preferred device.

Personability Is Profitable, But Also Brings Uncertainty
Human stories bring life to sports and emotions are central to the fan experience. This is what is captivating about CazéTV: Its coverage is humorous, its celebrations expansive.

However, putting humor at the forefront brings its own set of challenges. Trusting that all guests and correspondents will know how to read the room when trying to make a joke is always a bet, and a slip-up can have negative repercussions for the channel. We know that’s part of the reason why media groups like Globo bring seriousness to their coverage: not just to convey respectability, but also because trying to be funny can bring the wrong kind of attention.

While creators make bets in their choices for tone, the visual presentation is non-negotiable. With the technology possibilities of today, viewers of all ages expect quality when watching a program—whether they’re tuning in from their phone, tablet, computer or TV.

A professional studio, sound and image quality, lighting and professional switching are all treated as a “given,” and this is where CazéTV resembles a regular television program the most. You can see the incredible job the production team does on every live stream and the care put into the studio, as well as video and audio quality.

Without taking themselves too seriously, the CazéTV team means serious business.

Leveraging the Digital Connection
By now, it’s well-known that digital platforms are incredibly effective in reaching younger audiences. According to LiveMode, 82% of CazéTV’s audience is under 44 years old, and its engagement with its audience goes beyond just watching the content.

During the live streams, Casimiro encouraged his audience to follow the Brazilian athletes they were discussing on social media, sharing their account names and celebrating follower growth milestones. Notably, judo gold medal winner Bia Souza went from 13,000 followers to now just over 3 million—expanding the athlete’s reach not only brings attention to the sport, but is undoubtedly valuable currency for the athlete to score sponsorship deals. It’s a massive influence in bringing diversified value to the sports market.

Although, while I’m comparing CazéTV and TV Globo because both shared access to Olympic coverage in Brazil, it’s not realistic to think of them as direct competitors. That would be silly: CazéTV had half a million viewers tune in for the Olympics opening ceremony, while Globo had 36.4 million viewers. When it comes to raw audience numbers, there is no competition.

But that doesn’t mean the power of content creators can be ignored, either.

What Is the Future of Live TV?
The answer is everything. Viewers with an internet connection are spoiled for choice. The space on the internet is also endless, whereas with television there are specific slots, with some being primetime and others predictably less busy.

This “space” means there is a place for all kinds of content to flourish. We’re seeing young content creators break the mold in some respects and uphold tradition in others. While CazéTV finds a home for humor in tone and attitude, it also still invests heavily in the quality of its production.

In the end, regardless of the size of the broadcast, quality and authenticity wins.

NEW YORK—NBCUniversal took a commanding lead in TV watch-time among media companies in the August 2024 Media Distributor Gauge report, Nielsen’s monthly view of total television consumption by media company. 

On the strength of its presentation of the Paris Olympics, NBCU added 3.9 share points to garner a 13.4% share of TV usage in August. That set a personal-best for the company and a new record for the largest share of TV consumption by a single media company since November 2023 when Nielsen began ranking media companies by their share of total TV viewing.

The report also noted that NBCU’s recorded double-digit viewership growth across the three main channels that televised Olympics coverage: USA Network viewership jumped 47%, Peacock streaming was up 39%, and viewing across NBC broadcast affiliates rose 62%. 

Additionally, the Democratic National Convention also provided a boost for NBCU in August, as MSNBC’s coverage of the four-day DNC event lifted network viewership by 43% compared to July levels.  

In addition to NBCU, two more companies in the Media Distributor Gauge expanded their share of total TV viewing in August. 

After topping all media distributors in July, YouTube’s watch-time was up 2% in August to finish the month with 10.6% share of TV—another high-water mark for the streaming platform. 

The other company to record growth was The Roku Channel, which received a 3% bump in viewership and added one-tenth of a share point for a total of 1.7% of TV usage, the highest share it has recorded.

With new seasons of football and broadcast programming on the horizon, Disney, Paramount and Fox all experienced the end-of-summer lull in viewership in August, and finished with 9.5%, 7.1% and 6.0%, respectively. 

Nielsen’s researchers also noted that during the Games, NBCU established a successful blueprint for reaching consumers on their viewing platform of choice, which could prove to be an important milestone into the future. 

The measurement month of August 2024 included four weeks: 07/29/2024 through 08/25/2024. Nielsen measurement weeks run Monday through Sunday.

The Gauge is Nielsen’s monthly snapshot of total broadcast, cable and streaming consumption that occurs through a television screen, providing the industry with a holistic look at what audiences are watching. The Gauge was expanded in April 2024 to include The Media Distributor Gauge, which reflects total viewing by media distributor across these categories. 

NEW YORK—As expected television viewing in August got a big bump from the 2024 Paris Olympics, with broadcast TV up nearly 12% YoY, according to The Gauge report from Nielsen 

Broadcast viewing notched growth levels more typical for September with increases of 8% versus July and 11.7% year over year. The broadcast category ultimately accounted for 22.0% of TV in August, and when looking week-by-week, its share peaked during the first week of the interval with 24.3% of TV.

On the streaming side, Peacock offered broad Olympics coverage to complement linear offerings, the success of which was demonstrated by a monthly viewership increase of 39% for the streaming service overall, and nearly double the amount of viewers aged 35-49, Nielsen reported. 

These factors helped lift Peacock from a 1.5% share of TV in July to a new platform-best 2.1% share in August (+0.6 pts.). It also makes Peacock only the third streaming platform this year to record a 0.5 point share increase or more on a monthly basis, in addition to YouTube (Feb. and July) and Netflix (June), according to Nielsen’s The Gauge. 

Olympics programming on NBC drew millions of viewers in both primetime and daytime windows. Across all of NBC’s Olympics telecasts that aired during the August interval, 32 of them totaled more than 5 million viewers, and 17 garnered more than 10 million viewers. Moreover, Olympics telecasts on NBC notched the top 19 broadcast telecasts of the month. Leading the charge with 17.9 million viewers was NBC’s July 30th primetime program that highlighted Simone Biles and the U.S. women’s gymnastics team winning gold in the team competition, as well as four American medals in swimming and the dramatic bronze-medal victory by the U.S. women’s rugby team, the study found. 

From a total television usage perspective, August levels were even with July. However, a year-over-year comparison revealed a larger imbalance, as usage this month was up 3.5% versus August 2023. 

A notable year-over-year difference was also evident among broadcast program genres, with broadcast sports program viewership up 239% over August 2023, further illustrating the impact of the Games on the overall TV landscape, Nielsen reported. 

Like the broadcast category, cable also exhibited a peak viewing week that coincided with a major TV event. The Democratic National Convention aired for four nights across multiple networks during the final week of the August interval, and during that week, cable’s share of television climbed to 27.9%. The DNC also contributed to the top cable programs in August, with MSNBC receiving most of the benefits. MSNBC owned the top 11 cable telecasts of the month, and 14 of the top 15. ESPN’s coverage of the Florida State vs. Georgia Tech football matchup snagged the 12th spot. In the end, cable viewing was down 2% from July and finished the month with 26.3% of TV. 

After several consecutive remarkable months, the streaming category had a softer month in August from a content perspective, but remained the clear winner overall with 41.0% of TV (down 1%, -0.4 share points). 

Only one original program broke into the month’s top 10—The Umbrella Academy on Netflix totaled 3.9 billion viewing minutes—while the rest went to acquired titles including Prison Break, which led the way with 5.4 billion minutes across Netflix and Paramount+. Bluey on Disney+ generated over 4 billion viewing minutes to secure the second most watched streaming title this month. The animated Australian import helped drive an 8% increase for the streamer, as Disney+ reached a platform high of 2.3% of TV in August. Some of the 8% boost can also be attributed to Hulu content available within the Disney+ platform to certain package subscribers.

YouTube won the month among streaming services for the 19th consecutive interval, posting another category and platform best in August with 10.6% of TV. Compared with August 2023, YouTube has the largest year-over-year difference in share for any streaming platform and has added 1.5 points to its share of TV (9.1% to 10.6%). Meanwhile, the overall streaming category has gained 2.7 points YoY and is up 11% versus August 2023.

The measurement month of August 2024 included four weeks: 07/29/2024 through 08/25/2024. Nielsen measurement weeks run Monday through Sunday. 

NEW YORK—July TV viewing marked a notable milestone in the evolution of how consumers watch TV and their use of streaming platforms, YouTube moved into the lead among media distributors in the July 2024 Media Distributor Gauge report, Nielsen’s monthly view of total TV consumption by media company. 

In July time spent watching YouTube on television was up 7% compared to June, leading the streaming platform to account for 10.4% of total TV in July (up from 9.9%). This marks the first time a streaming platform ranks first in the Media Distributor Gauge chart, and the first time a streamer has exceeded 10% of total TV usage in a given month. Disney, which owns both linear networks and streaming services was second with a 9.9% share. 

Nielsen noted that seasonality plays a significant role in viewing behavior fluctuations observed throughout the year, and summer months typically include increases in both streaming viewership and kids’ total TV usage. 

As such, YouTube’s leap to the top media distributor in July was driven largely by school-aged viewers (P2-17) who accounted for nearly 30% of YouTube viewership this month, and 13% of TV viewership overall—the largest usage total for that age demographic since July 2023, Nielsen said. 

TV viewing in July was also impacted by increased political news coverage and the start of the Summer Olympics. Led by coverage of the Republican National Convention, Fox News Channel saw a 39% bump in viewing this month, while Tubi notched 6% growth compared to June. Both entities helped drive a 16% increase for Fox overall. Fox added a 0.8 share point to its share of TV to finish July with 7.4% total TV usage, marking the company’s largest share of TV so far this year and moving it to 5th among media distributors. 

Even with just three days of Olympics coverage included in the July reporting interval, the impact the Summer Games had on NBCUniversal was evident, the Nielsen data showed. 

NBCU’s share of TV climbed from 8.5% in June to 9.5% in July, and viewership across all NBCU distribution channels was up 14%, driven by a 33% increase for Peacock and a 24% increase across broadcast affiliates.

Disney finished July with the second largest share of TV at 9.9% after recording a 0.9 share point loss from June. However, year-to-date totals (January – July) show that Disney leads all media distributors with 11.0% of TV viewing through seven months, followed by YouTube at 9.6% and NBCU at 9.1%. A wider lens look further emphasizes the potential impact of monthly factors like content availability and time of year.

The summer-to-fall transition is one of the most dynamic in the TV viewing landscape each year. And this year, on top of the expected return of football and a new season of scripted programming, we also factor in major TV events including the Summer Olympics and the lead up to the presidential election. With these variables in the mix, TV viewership over the next few months could be as exciting as the content that drives it.

The measurement month of July 2024 included four weeks: 07/01/2024 through 07/28/2024. Nielsen measurement weeks begin on Mondays and run through the following Sunday.

There have been a series of significant milestones in the evolution of Olympic broadcast sound culminating in the greatest audio production of an Olympics ever. Clearly NBC has led and dominated the soundwaves for more than four decades and 2024 is the pinnacle of their persistence.

Host Broadcasters
Basically, live television sound was mono until the 1980s with the first Olympics stereo broadcast in 1988. Under the direction of sound designer Bob Dixon, NBC placed a shotgun microphone alongside the host broadcaster’s single shotgun microphone to capture XY stereo. This was no easy feat politically or technically since the Host Broadcaster Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) was only obligated to delivered mono sound to the rightsholders, including NBC.

The Host Broadcaster was traditionally the national broadcaster of the host country, but after 2008, Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) became the permanent Host Broadcaster, fully under the direction of the International Olympic Committee.

The Host Broadcaster for the 1992 Games in Barcelona was TVE, Spain’s national broadcaster, where they produced the Opening and Closing Ceremonies in stereo, but sports were captured and produced in mono. The year 1996 was the first Olympics that the Host Broadcaster, Atlanta Olympic Broadcaster (AOB), captured and produced all events in stereo sound.

After 1996, Dixon encouraged Mike Edwards and Ken Reichel of Audio Technica to manufacture a stereo shotgun. In fact, Edwards initiated and supervised the development of three stereo microphones and two mono shotgun microphones, which were still heard on all Olympic sports and ceremonies in Paris.

Signal Management
In addition to the extensive development of suitable microphones, there was considerable work to be done with signal management and distribution. Broadcasters had to solve the problem of multichannel audio over a stereo infrastructure. Various schemes were developed to get more than two channels of sound to the home viewer/listener, but it was not until the sound was digitized that a credible surround sound was possible for distribution and transmission.

In 2006, after consulting with his audio director, Olympic Broadcast Services chief Manolo Romero determined that producing surround sound with unprocessed, discrete audio channels was the best way to satisfy the needs of all the rights holders at the Olympics—including NBC.

With 2008 came the implementation of surround sound at the Summer Olympics with the host broadcaster delivering six discrete channels of sound for the 5.1 sound format.

The sound of the 2008 Games was a significant challenge for NBC because so much of the viewing/listening audience was still listening in stereo since soundbars had only recently entered the marketplace in early 2000s.

NBC continued to develop surround sound with various Dolby analog schemes, but it was NBC’s adoption of ATSC 1.0 with Dolby AC3, along with a market full of affordable soundbars that multichannel sound would take off.

Immersive Sound
NBC polished its surround sound coverage but was persistent with the goal of true immersion. For the 2012 Games in Russia, NBC Sports Sound Designer and Olympic Supervisor, Karl Malone vigorously pursued immersive sound, beginning in Rio where NBC mixed Opening and Closing Ceremonies in immersive sound.

Pyeongchang and Tokyo followed, and immersive sound was heard in both Opening and Closing Ceremonies as well as big venues. For Beijing, all primetime coverage was produced in immersive sound. Finally in Paris, all primetime, USA Network and all Olympic sports received the immersive sonic enhancements.

By the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games, immersive sound was also captured and delivered by the permanent Host Broadcaster OBS. Nuno Duarte, the OBS sound designer and supervisor, was dealt a surprise—no audience! And the same for Beijing. The magic of sports and particularly the Olympics is seeing and hearing the arenas and stadiums full of spectators.

The games were delayed a year and everyone had time to prepare a design without spectators. The actual sound signal capture and production of immersive sound is not difficult particularly if you have a sonic layer of ambiance and atmosphere.

Malone had to make some difficult decisions about the sound design.

“Tokyo gave us the ability to focus on the details of the sports and the athletes,” he said. “The sound of the hands on the gymnastics apparatus and the creak of the wood on the parallel bars; the actual physical exertion of the athlete, the breath, the sighs, the joy all there to be captured without the masking by the crowd. We knew we were missing the passion of the crowd as much as the athletes were, but adding any fake crowd was unthinkable, even for a company like NBC, which is largely an entertainment one.”

A Milestone
The 2024 Summer Games in Paris were also a milestone as they were the first summer games where immersive sound was produced with the return of the audiences, the third dimension that was missing in Tokyo.

NBC seamlessly creates a production mix that includes “stems” of the host broadcaster’s 5.1.4 mix, plus any microphone splits, any additional crowd capture, any camera microphones, plus commentators, replays and music. Along with NBC’s branding and personal touch, it makes it look like NBC did the entire production.

“The absence of the crowd in an event of the magnitude of the greatest sporting contest in the world is almost unthinkable, and Paris is a return to what an event of this scope requires for the greatest athletes, the biggest crowds and the loudest cheers,” Malone said.

I anxiously tweaked up my Yamaha, Dolby Atmos-equipped soundbar and paid my subscription to Peacock over my Roku streamer and noticed a significant improvement with the sonic quality of the broadcasts.

The return of the spectator and the abundance of “open-air” stadiums has created a rich gumbo of sound succulence! I applaud Nuno Duarte and Karl Malone and thoroughly enjoyed listening.

New data from Guideline indicates that the Olympics had a notable impact on the U.S. ad market in July even though only first five days of the Olympics aired in July. Overall, Guideline reported that the US ad market saw a nearly 14% increase YoY in July 2024, the strongest month in the 15th consecutive month of marketplace expansion, with the 5 days of July Olympics accounting for 43% of the all media July ad growth.  

While the July ad spend grew 14% YoY including the Olympics, it increased by only 8% without.  

Linear TV benefited the most, with National TV up 10% YoY with the Olympics; excluding Olympics it would have been down 7% YoY

Meanwhile digital media was up 18% YoY in July; excluding Olympics it would have still risen by a healthy 15% YoY.

The impact of the Olympics in the July ad spend indicates that the games will have an even larger impact in August, when the games continued until August 11, Guidline reported. 

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBCUniversal has announced that it’s coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will be accessible to more viewers of all abilities than ever before with enhanced closed captioning, expanded audio description, and improved digital content accessibility.

Closed captioning, which provides text of the coverage audio for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, will be available for all Paralympic events airing across NBC and USA Network, as well as closed captioning for all digital live streams with commentary across Peacock, NBCParalympics.com, NBC.com, and the NBC Sports app.

In addition, more audio description services – interspersing broadcast audio with skilled voices describing Paralympic scenes and context – will be available for viewers who are blind or visually impaired for Paris 2024 than for any previous Paralympics. All coverage on NBC, USA Network, CNBC, and the Gold Zone whip-around show on Peacock, will feature audio description provided by Descriptive Video Works, NBCU reported. 

The coverage will also feature improved web content accessibility, including keyboard navigation, color contrast and support for screen readers on NBCParalympics.com, NBC.com, the NBC Sports app, and Peacock. Livestreams and replays which offer audio description will have English audio description as a language choice within the players on these digital platforms. 

To easily find all events with audio description, click here.

“For over a decade, Comcast NBCUniversal has been working to address barriers to make our experiences more inclusive,” said Tom Wlodkowski, vice president, accessibility at Comcast. “As a consumer of Paralympics programming with audio description, I’m looking forward to fully participating in the joy that the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will bring.”

All of this audio description and closed captioning will be available to Comcast Xfinity customers who experience the Games on the Xfinity X1 platform, including on Xfinity Stream and on Xfinity Flex.

KAWASAKI, Japan—On the heels of the Paris Summer Olympics where Media Links’ latest solutions were used to transport the highest quality media both domestically and internationally, the company has announced that it will present its complete IP ecosystem at the upcoming IBC 2024 in Amsterdam, at stand 1.A37, from Sept 13-16. 

Headlined by its next generation SMPTE ST 2110 enabled Xscend IP media platform, the Media Links ecosystem provides for the transport of pristine quality video, audio, and data signals over any managed and/or unmanaged IP network, anywhere, accommodating current and future evolving industry standards and protocols.  

At IBC, the company will demonstrate how its versatile product portfolio addresses various industry challenges across a range of applications, including: 

• GPS-free Single Frequency Networks (SFN) 
• Precision Timing Protocol (PTP) over Microwave
• Cloud-based content delivery
• SDI to IP and/or IP to IP migration
• Media Network Management for any network, service, or equipment
• Remote / Distributed Production for all media types and volumes, local or global

In addition to Xscend, other showcased Media Links ecosystem components include ProMD-EMS network management software, the MDX series of IP media switches, and MDP Series of IP media gateways. 

“This year marks 31 years of Media Links engineering, sales and manufacturing innovation in Media over IP technology for the broadcast and media industry,” added Cesare Camparada, head of market development of EMEA for Media Links. “Our technology solutions continue to  help broadcasters and network providers streamline their media delivery workflows. We value ourselves in being a trusted partner for organizations looking to transition to IP-based media delivery and have a legacy of offering future proof solutions that address the evolving needs of the industry.” 

STAMFORD, Conn.—As part of its plans to stream a record-breaking 1,500+ hours of live coverage across all 22 Paralympic Sports, Peacock will also be offering Gold Zone and Multiview, two of the streamers highest profile initiatives its coverage of the Paris Olympics, during the Paralympic Games when competition coverage begins Aug. 29. 

The two features add to NBCUniversal’s already robust programming plan across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, and CNBC for this year’s Paris Paralympics, which run from Aug. 28 through Sept. 8.

“Coming off its resounding success during the Paris Olympics, Gold Zone will make its Paralympics debut and provide a whirlwind trip around the Games each day as Team USA’s athletes compete against the world’s best,” said Molly Solomon, executive producer and president, programming, NBC Olympics and Paralympics. “Paralympic veteran host Carolyn Manno will guide viewers to the best events, moments, and stories as they happen, from goalball to blind soccer to table tennis and many more.”

“Gold Zone and Multiview broke through as two fan-favorite features during the Olympics, and we know they’ll continue to be valuable in driving discovery and engagement during the Paralympics,” added Kelly Campbell, president, Peacock and Direct-to-Consumer, NBCUniversal. “They epitomize Peacock’s unique, industry-leading live streaming experience, seamlessly showcasing both the magic of the Games and the power of the platform.”

Gold Zone, one of the breakout hits of the Paris Olympics, will debut for the Paralympics on Thursday, Aug. 29, the first day of competition. Hosted by Carolyn Manno, Gold Zone will stream live on Peacock from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. ET each day through Sept. 7. 

NBCU reported that Paris 2024 marks the first time the Paralympics will get live whip-around show treatment, showcasing the must-see moments as they unfold. As one of the most popular offerings of Peacock’s comprehensive Paris Olympics coverage, Gold Zone consistently ranked in the platform’s top five most-watched Olympics titles and nearly quadrupled its viewership over the course of the Games, with one in five Olympics viewers tuning in.

Beginning on the first day of competition on Aug. 29 and running until Sept. 4, Peacock will also provide a daily Multiview feed featuring the top live Paralympic events to help fans discover and dive into featured events curated by NBC Sports experts.

Peacock’s extensive Paralympics hub will be easily accessible on the Peacock home page from the main navigation menu starting Aug. 20 and feature curated rails of live and upcoming events; dedicated in-depth sections for each Paralympic sport; simul-streams of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and all linear coverage from NBC, USA Network and CNBC; full-event replays; curated video clips; medal standings; and an interactive schedule.

Other unique features for this year’s Paralympic Games one for the ages, include a breathtaking Opening Ceremony set to take place on the Champs-Élysées at the Place de la Concorde. Located in the heart of Paris, an estimated 4,400 athletes representing over 180 delegations from around the world are expected to take part in the opening festivities. Additional events taking place amidst the iconic Parisian landmarks include the Eiffel Tower, Roland Garros, Versailles, and more. This will be the first time the French capital will host the Paralympic Games.

NBCU’s Paralympic Games coverage will include the most streaming hours ever for a Paralympic event, with approximately 1,500 hours of live coverage across all 22 Paralympic sports set to be streamed on Peacock throughout the duration of the 12-day event. Additionally, more than 140 hours of Paris Paralympic television coverage across NBC, USA Network, and CNBC will be presented. NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app will provide streaming coverage via authentication.

If there were any doubts that streaming TV has finally hit its stride in 2024, NBC was ready to knock them down this month.

Although the network didn’t break out the share of 2024 Olympics viewing split between its three platforms—Peacock streaming, broadcast TV (NBC, Telemundo) and its cable channels (such as USA Network, E! and NBCSports)—the company’s enthusiasm about Peacock’s performance from Paris underscored the growing perceived value of streaming video in the media mix. NBC crowed that the 23.5 billion minutes of Paris Olympics coverage streamed via Peacock during the games, July 19-Aug. 11, was up “40% from all prior Summer and Winter Olympics combined.”

(Read: Peacock Signed-Up 2.8M Subs During Olympics)

NBCUniversal Media Group Chairman Mark Lazarus said the streaming usage “marked a groundbreaking moment for Peacock, which delivered …cutting-edge innovation while shattering all-time Olympics streaming records.”

The Olympics streaming victory lap surfaced amidst a marathon of other developments that illustrate the hurdles and leaps that face the industry. Days after NBC’s declaration of streaming success, a Federal court in New York issued a preliminary injunction to stop Venu Sports, the joint venture streaming service from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, which had planned to launch in time for the NFL season.

‘Wait and See’
These developments emerged just after Nielsen’s latest “The Gauge” report, which calculated that 40.3% of TV viewing is now watched on streaming platforms, followed by cable (27.2.1%) and over-the-air broadcast (25.5%). The streaming share was up from 37.7% a year earlier in Nielsen’s analysis of how Americans watch TV across platforms.

Collectively, this summer’s avalanche of streaming exuberance (and stumbles) mirrors the ways that the buzzy business of video streaming is taking off in countless directions. At the same time, dozens of challenges are becoming apparent in this latest competitor to (or collaborator with?) broadcast TV. They encompass technology, economics, legal/regulatory issues and consumer preferences for ad-supported programming vs. paid content.

The emergence of Venu, the proposed $42.99/month bundle of streaming content has been a major source of enthusiasm. Its program package is intended to include ABC, Fox, ESPN, TNT, TBS programs and by extension a slew of major football, baseball, basketball and hockey league games. Analysts are waiting to see how it will fare against alternatives such as the Xfinity StreamSaver bundle that Comcast is assembling by bringing Peacock, Netflix and Apple TV+ into one $15 per month package.

Rick Ducey, managing director of BIA Advisory Services, who analyzes the migration of media platforms, characterizes the current situation as “a very complicated environment for everyone to navigate.” He cites “nearly 2,000 streaming services available to consumers configured, bundled and sold across various platforms, publishers, and content aggregators.”

Ducey observed that industry providers and consumers are evaluating the very different business models that are available.

Other analysts offer similar perceptions of the cloudy near-term outlook. “This environment makes it challenging for consumers to keep track of what they are spending, which causes a great deal of frustration,” says Adriana Waterston, executive vice president and insights and strategy lead at the Horowitz Research Division of M/A/R/C Research. “This is why churn has been such a big issue.” She points to data showing that “consumers navigate these costs by timing which services they pay for when.”

Waterston sees the decision-making process about streaming tied to viewers’ “increased expectation for content that reflects [their] identities and views on the world,” and said she expects an even “bigger impact” if and when Venu debuts as “sports fans get a sense of the breadth of content this service could offer.”

In her firm’s recent research, 42% of sports fans said they would subscribe [to Venu], and among those who were likely to sign up, 38% said they would likely make a change to the other services they get because of it.

NBC, in its post-Olympics victory lap, pointed to streaming video’s ability to give viewers what they want to see. Peacock’s “Gold Zone,” a compendium of whip-around coverage of each day’s Olympic highlights, consistently ranked among Peacock’s top five most-watched Olympics segments and nearly quadrupled its viewership during the two weeks in Paris, according to NBC’s analysis.

One in five Olympics viewers tuned into “Gold Zone” and more than a quarter of Olympics viewers on Peacock watched via “Multiview,” with half of their time spent on featured live events, and half watching the “quad box” view of multiple events.

Churn Concerns
Yet in the deluge of viewer research, an unsettling picture emerges. In Xperi’s latest TiVo Video Trends Report, 20% of consumers said they believed “they have too many services.” The study found that at the end of 2023, the average home used 11.1 services (down slightly from 11.5 a year earlier)—but that the number of free services increased while paid services declined year over year.

Parks Associates also identified a 30% decline in spending on streaming services since 2021. Current spending is about $64 per month compared to $90 monthly three years ago, according to Sarah Lee, a Parks research analyst. “Consumers are spending less, but rather than go without, many are using ad-based alternatives to save on costs,” Lee said. “A service needs to provide unique and ongoing value if it is to charge a premium.”

Separate research by LG Ads indicates that 80% of viewers watch Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) channels and 63% prefer this format to other on-demand formats.

And that leads to questions about what viewers want to see on streaming channels.

MoffettNathanson media analyst Michael Nathanson, in a mid-summer evaluation, examined a shift away from original content, which had established Netflix in its early years. Now, Nathanson said that Netflix, along with Paramount+ and Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) Max, are showing streaming gains even “as they released less content.”

“The market has shifted to allow the company to drive an increasingly large share of its viewership with its competitors’ content,” Nathanson said. “This is reflected in acquired titles’ (and especially nonexclusive acquired titles) rapidly increasing share of the list of top streamed titles.” He pointed out that only two of the top 20 most-streamed shows on Netflix in Spring were originals.

Seth Skolnik, chief operating officer of Vivid Labs, draws on his experiences at Paramount, Technicolor and new media start-ups to conclude that the bubble has burst. “We already see a significant decline in new show production, smaller deals, and only with established showrunners and stars,” he said. Buckle your pants, we are all going on a diet.”

BIA’s Ducey is also trying to interpret how streaming customers’ viewing preferences will affect future production and distribution. “Content investment strategy has shifted towards more focused content offerings such as TV shows and films in genres like action, medical or police dramas, international series and films, live sports [and]… science fiction,” he said. “The total investment in content and number of titles produced may have reached a limit for now as streaming businesses rationalize” growth and profitability metrics.

“Cross-platform (linear TV plus streaming) campaign planning, activation, optimization and improved measurement and ROI using relevant Key Performance Indicators will provide a lot of lift to streaming’s role in the local media ecosystem,” he added.

Caution: Lawyers at Work
As the content and marketing landscape takes shape, streaming is already facing increased legal scrutiny. Congressional forces are urging the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission to probe the Venu alliance with an emphasis on a potential antitrust violation in pooling sports league contracts of the several networks.

In the current legal challenge to Venu, plaintiff streamer Fubo claims it is being forced to carry dozens of channels in order to get licensing rights to the sports events.

“The FCC hasn’t regulated streaming services to date, other than in very discrete areas such as closed captioning,” explains Ari Meltzer, a communications attorney at the Wiley Rein law firm in Washington. He points out that there are already disputes about whether the FCC has authority over streaming video­—an issue that is being bruited around quietly on Capitol Hill. For now, oversight comes under other legal umbrellas, such as antitrust, contracts, copyright, and unfair and deceptive trade practices, Meltzer adds.

“There are tradeoffs: while streaming services don’t have to comply with the same regulations as broadcast and cable/satellite, they also aren’t entitled to certain benefits, such as statutory copyrights,” he added. “Most streaming services seem content trading the need to obtain copyrights for less regulation.”

Last week’s ruling on Venu from the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, has changed the momentum. There is no indication about how long the court’s temporary restraining order will stay in effect. Fubo, a nine-year old streaming service that concentrates on live sports (including NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international football), filed the lawsuit in February, claiming that Venu would control up to 80% of live broadcast sports content.

Venu’s owners said they plan to appeal the Court ruling.

Fubu co-founder/CEO David Gandler welcomed the ruling, saying “We seek equal treatment from these media giants, and a level playing field in our industry.” He cited the network and league that “monopolize the market, stifle competition and cheat consumers from deserved choice.”

Determining the Venu legal status “introduces a bit of a wild card” to the landscape, Ducey added. “If Venu does move forward and survives these threats, it certainly could [prove] how to bring some collaborative innovation to the market by trying to offer a ‘best-in-class’ sports experience to streaming viewers.” But he acknowledged that the high-value sports licensing rights could “challenge the viability” of Venu.

“Something has to give. Consolidation may help share costs but then partners stand to lose some competitive differentiation with their other direct-to-consumer and distribution platform strategies,” Ducey added. “It’s not clear how this nets out at this point.”

Meanwhile, Advertisers are Standing By
Central to many streaming providers’ programming and pricing decisions is the flavor of streaming video that appeals to viewers.

Among the options:

• AVOD (Ad-Supported Video on Demand)
• FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV)
• SVOD with ad-supported discount tiers
• TVOD (Transactional VOD, i.e., one-time rentals of a movie or show from Prime Video)
• PVOD (Premium VOD, additional fee for access to exclusive content such as major event or early-access viewing)

Add to that acronym jumble the emerging options for commercial operations, such as:

• CSAI (client-side ad insertion): ads aimed direct to customers
• SSAI (server-side ad insertion): ads put into video streams

Advertisers are evaluating the comparative values of CSAI, which enables more individual personalization to viewers vs. SSAI, which are less prone to disruptions or latency issues.

In its latest survey of viewer acceptance of ad-supported streaming, Hub Entertainment Research found that “an increasing number of TV viewers are accepting advertising in streaming video and they are readily able to discern the differences in how various services deliver the ad experience.” Hub said that “two-thirds of TV viewers would prefer watching ads if it saves on subscription costs” and the level of total ad intolerance has dropped from 17% in 2021 to 12% in June 2024.

Along with the ad-structure decisions comes a confrontation with a question that many media veterans fear: “Are we reinventing cable TV?” For example, the SVOD vs. FAST deliberation revives memories of the 1970s and ’80s introductions of ad-supported cable networks along with HBO, Showtime and other extra-fee “paid” channels.

Adriana Waterston of M/A/R/C calls content consolidation (such as Venu) into à la carte packages “the beginning of the new cable TV/multichannel bundle,” adding “I believe that at least from a value standpoint, this is what consumers really need, even if it’s not what they think they want.”

We’ve Seen This Show Before
In his 2024 memoir “Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions,” TV and film producer/director/writer Ed Zwick mused about Hollywood’s shift toward the economics of streaming.

The celebrated creator (“thirtysomething,” “Glory,” “The Last Samurai,”), laments that, “storytelling in this new age of streaming platforms seems deliberately crafted to create a new kind of anxiety designed to induce gorging rather than fulfillment, conversation rather than catharsis, consumption instead of closure.”

“The thoughtful has given way to marketable, and the complex idea replaced by the 15-second TikTok,” Zwick contends as he dissects Hollywood’s current “pressure to hold to …commercial viability” and the preference for “pre-sold IP [intellectual property] [that] can be marketed in a single sentence.”

After expressing his frustrations, Zwick kvetches that the modern Hollywood approach is “to aim low and hit the target.”

In addition to the huge audiences the 2024 Summer Olympics delivered for NBCUniversal, a new study from Antenna found that the games also produced a burst of new signups to NBCU’s streaming service Peacock, which saw 2.8 million sign ups during the games. 

Typically, many of the biggest acquisition moments for streaming are related to the NFL, but the 2024 Paris Games approached those levels. Between July 25 and July 31, Antenna observed 2.8 million sign-ups to Peacock. 

The researchers also reported that average daily sign-ups to Peacock of 398k during the first week of The 2024 Olympics represented a 5.6x increase versus the 8-week benchmark. 

“For now, we know that there is no doubt that the 2024 Paris Games had an impact on acquisition,” a blog post on the results reported. “On average, Peacock has commanded 16% share of Premium SVOD Gross Adds over the prior 12-months. In July 2024, Peacock drew 29% share of all Gross Additions in the category.”

Antenna has previously noted that live sporting events, especially the NFL, drive acquisition for streaming video services. In fact, earlier this year Antenna observed 3 million sign-ups to Peacock during the January NFL AFC Wild Card Weekend, and 3.4 million sign-ups to Paramount+ for Super Bowl LVIII. But the nature of those events—a single game on a single day—is much different than the Olympics, which are spread across multiple days and weeks. 

Antenna also found that the loyalty of the AFC Wild Card cohort, a significant acquisition moment in SVOD, was just -7pts weaker than the service’s benchmark.

For more detailed information on Antenna’s methodology and definitions of core metrics, please visit http://www.antenna.live/methodology. 

NEW YORK—Streaming made TV history for a second consecutive month in July as it notched the most dominant performance by a single viewing category ever in Nielsen’s The Gauge, accounting for 41.4% of TV viewing. Streaming levels were over 5% higher in July compared to June, leading streaming to grow its share of TV by more than a point (+1.1 share points) and shatter the previous record it set just last month.

During the month, YouTube became the first streaming platform ever to exceed 10% of total TV usage in July. The most popular streamer shot up 7% versus last month, accounting for 10.4% of TV usage (+0.5 share points). This comes after YouTube hit 9.9% of TV in June and secured the second largest share of TV viewing among all media distributors. 

July also ushered in the beginning of the Summer Olympics in Paris, and despite only three days of coverage included in the July Gauge report, the impact the Games had on TV viewing was evident. Total TV usage was up 2.3% in July compared to the previous month, and up 3.5% compared to July 2023. 

Nielsen also reported that broadcast viewing increased slightly this month to 20.3% of TV, but was up 5% compared to a year ago. The category also finished 0.3 points higher than July 2023 when it recorded its lowest share ever (20.0% of TV). When TV usage is isolated by week, the start of Olympics coverage in the final week of July pushed the broadcast average up to over 22% of total TV. This is further emphasized by the fact that the Olympics accounted for the top five, and seven of the top 10, broadcast telecasts in the July report, with the largest audience averaging 19 million viewers on NBC on Sunday, July 28.

Peacock’s coverage of the Olympics vaulted the streamer to 1.5% of TV (+0.3 share points) and its second best share of TV ever (behind 1.6% in Jan. 2024). Also boosted by viewing to Love Island USA, Peacock’s 33% monthly usage increase in July was the largest for any streaming platform in The Gauge. 

It was followed by two more streamers with double-digit monthly increases: Amazon Prime Video viewing was up 12% from June to notch 3.4% of TV (+0.3 share points), its best since November 2023. The Roku Channel was up 10% and added 0.1 point to achieve a platform best 1.6% of TV. 

July is typically a peak month for streaming usage, and this year, each week of the July interval* led to the top four most streamed weeks ever reported by Nielsen. The streaming fireworks kicked off with a notable week in Nielsen’s Streaming Top 10 when, for the first time ever, 10 titles exceeded 1 billion viewing minutes. What’s more, July 2024 now holds four of the top 10 most streamed days on record.

"House of the Dragon" on Max topped streaming programs in July with 4.7 billion viewing minutes, also helping to drive an increase of over 4% for the streamer to retain its 1.4% share of TV. It was followed by "Bluey" on Disney+ with 4.3 billion viewing minutes in July. Disney+ usage was up 9.2% this month to finish with a platform best 2.1% of TV. Prime Video’s original series "The Boys" was third among streaming programs with 4.2 billion viewing minutes.  

Cable viewing in July was even compared to June, but due to the larger increase of overall TV usage, the category lost half a share point and ended the month with 26.7% of TV. Cable news viewing saw a strong increase in July, driven by the Republican National Convention and coverage of the assassination attempt on former President Trump. The news genre was up 23% compared to June, and up 52% compared to July 2023. Of July’s top 25 cable telecasts, Fox News Channel owned 24 of them.

* The measurement month of July 2024 included four weeks: 07/01/2024 through 07/28/2024. Nielsen measurement weeks begin on Mondays and run through the following

NEW YORK—Warner Bros. Discovery is reporting record Olympics streaming and TV audiences in Europe during the Paris Olympics and that its streaming service Max boosted viewership and engagement across Europe. 

WBD reported that about 7 billion minutes of Olympics coverage was streamed in Europe during the games with a record 600 million minutes streamed during a single day on Sunday August 4. In addition, its streaming service Max added a record number of new paid streaming subscribers over the Games period; 77% more than Tokyo 2020, with Saturday August 27 becoming Warner Bros. Discovery’s biggest ever single day for new paid streaming subscribers in Europe. 

WBD showed the Paris Games across nearly 50 markets in 20 languages on Max, discovery+ and through Eurosport on linear television. 

Under a new agreement announced in January 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery will continue to be the only place to present every moment of the Games on its streaming and digital platforms and hold full pay-TV rights. This includes Olympic Winter Games Milan Cortina 2026, Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028, Olympic Winter Games French Alps 2030 and Olympic Games Brisbane 2032.

JB Perrette, CEO and president, Global Streaming and Games, Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement that “Paris 2024 has exceeded all expectations for fans and audiences, and for Max and Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming business. We’ve added millions of new paying subscribers, and engaged millions of viewers daily on streaming who have watched billions of minutes of content during the Games. Our streaming growth momentum is only gaining strength, and we’ve still got almost half the global addressable market to go. Congratulations and thank you to our great partners at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee for an epic Olympic Games.”

WBD described the viewing data as follows:  

• WBD coverage had a cumulative reach of more than 215 million in Europe who viewed Olympics content on Warner Bros. Discovery’s platforms – 23% more than Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (+40 million). This includes Max and discovery+, as well as Eurosport TV channels and free-to-air networks in Norway (TVNorge), Sweden (Kanal 5) and Finland (Kutonen, TV5).
• More than 7 billion minutes streamed over the course of the Games – six times more than Tokyo 2020. A record-breaking day: Sunday 4th August saw a Warner Bros. Discovery record in Europe of 600 million minutes in a single day streamed by Max and discovery+ subscribers.
• Four times as many unique streaming viewers on Warner Bros. Discovery platforms, including Max and discovery+, throughout the Games compared to the last summer Olympics. 
• New paid streaming subscribers exceeded those for the entire Tokyo 2020 after just four days of competition in Paris (Saturday 27th July - Tuesday 30 July 2024). Record number of new paid streaming subscribers over the Games period; 77% more than Tokyo 2020. Saturday 27th July saw Warner Bros. Discovery’s highest number of new paid streaming subscribers ever in a single day in Europe (Max, discovery+ or previously HBO Max).
• Significant subscriber growth across all major markets in Europe, particularly France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the U.K.
• More than 4.5 billion video views of Warner Bros. Discovery Olympics posts on social. Nearly ten times more than Tokyo 2020 and more than four times greater than Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 and Tokyo 2020 combined.
• Warner Bros. Discovery’s average linear television audiences for Paris 2024 were double Tokyo 2020, demonstrating the continued attraction of the Olympic Games in Europe across all platforms. Impressive audience shares – more than 80% for a number of events - were seen across both Free-to-Air (Finland, Norway and Sweden) and Eurosport’s pay-tv network – including increasing share vs free-to-air partners in many territories.
• Monday 5 August saw a record-breaking TV audience on Kanal 5 in Sweden, as Swedish gold medalist, Armand Duplantis, won the men’s pole vault. An 82% TV audience share was amongst the highest ever share in Kanal 5’s history.
• In Poland, Eurosport 1 & 2, available via pay-tv, had their best day and highest average audience ever during the Games on Wednesday 7th August, attracting a 9.7% share at the group level. Eurosport 1 was the second most viewed channel in the country on the day. At least nine out of the ten highest viewed days on Eurosport in Poland came during Paris 2024.

STAMFORD, Conn.—NBCUniversal is reporting that its coverage of the Paris Olympics attracted viewing audiences that were up 82% from the Tokyo Olympics and that the games produced record levels of streaming and engagement on social media. 

More specifically, the games delivered a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 30.6 million viewers across the combined live Paris Prime (2-5 p.m. ET) and U.S. primetime (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) time periods – up 82% from the Tokyo Olympics (16.9 million), according to fast national data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. 

In addition, NBC Broadcast Network extended its streak to 152 consecutive Summer Olympics nights as primetime’s No. 1 show and USA Network ranked as the #1 cable sports/entertainment network in Total Day and primetime viewership over the two weeks of competition.

Led by Peacock, 23.5 billion minutes of Paris Olympics coverage were streamed – up 40% from all prior Summer and Winter Olympics combined (16.8 billion minutes across NBCUniversal digital platforms).

“Our NBCUniversal team matched the occasion of this transformative Paris Olympics, presenting peerless coverage in daytime and primetime across all platforms, including the NBC broadcast network, which once again was home to the most-watched night of television for 17 consecutive days,” said Mark Lazarus, chairman, NBCUniversal Media Group. “The Games marked a groundbreaking moment for Peacock, which delivered a flawless user experience and cutting-edge innovation while shattering all-time Olympics streaming records. USA Network went around-the-clock and ranked #1 in cable sports and entertainment for the past two weeks. Telemundo Deportes provided extensive Spanish-language coverage. NBC News broadcast from on-location in Paris and dominated the competition, while our owned-stations and affiliates had soaring local news ratings. We sold more advertising for the Paris Olympics than for any other Games, and we delivered for all of our partners. Parks and Studios received unmatched promotion, as the ‘halo effect’ boosted all of our businesses. The Paris Olympics was as exciting as we could have hoped, and we can’t wait to work with our partners at the IOC and USOPC in Milan-Cortina in ’26 and LA28.”

“Led by our best-in-class engineering and production teams in Paris and Stamford, a staff of more than 3,000 worked tirelessly to present these reimagined Games in new and innovative ways in all dayparts and on all platforms,” added Rick Cordella, president, NBC Sports/ 

NBCU described the other highlights as follows: 

• NBCU’s lead Olympics host Mike Tirico anchored nearly 100 hours across two primetime presentations – live “Paris Prime” coverage from 2-5 p.m. ET and the traditional U.S. primetime at 8 p.m. ET/PT – as NBCU featured the best events live while adding context and special elements for the large evening audience.
• Over the full Games, Paris Prime (daytime) and U.S. primetime coverage posted a streaming TAD of 4.1 million viewers daily across Peacock and NBCU Digital platforms.
• NBC has dominated broadcast primetime since the beginning of the Paris Olympics, which has boosted NBC to No. 1 among Adults 18-49 in the 2023-24 season. NBC is now on pace to win the demographic for the 12-month season, which concludes in September.
• New Orleans led all markets in local NBC station ratings during the Paris Olympics (“Paris Prime” + primetime windows). 
• Led by Peacock, 23.5 billion minutes of Paris Olympics coverage were streamed – up 40% from all prior Summer and Winter Olympics combined (16.8 billion minutes across NBCUniversal digital platforms).
• As the streaming home of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Peacock provided fans with the most comprehensive Olympic destination in U.S. media history. Through innovative new features like Peacock Discovery Multiview, Live Actions and the generative A.I.-powered “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock,” fans were able to navigate more than 5,000 hours of Olympics coverage in a way that best fit their interests or timetable.
• Peacock managed up to 60 concurrent single live event streams and up to 300 live events a day during the first week alone – leading to a total of over 3,200 live events over the course of the Games. As one of the most popular offerings of Peacock’s comprehensive Paris Olympics coverage, Gold Zone consistently ranked among Peacock’s top five most-watched Olympics titles and nearly quadrupled its viewership over the course of the Games, with one in five Olympics viewers tuning in.
• More than a quarter of Olympics viewers on Peacock watched via Multiview, with half of the time spent in the featured live events, and half watching in the quad box view. Six of 10 viewers used the Browse by Sport navigation menu in the Olympics hub to quickly dive into a specific sport.
• USA Network dominated the cable landscape during the two weeks of Paris Olympic competition, ranking as the #1 cable sports/entertainment network in Total Day and primetime in both total viewers and the Adults 18-49 demo.
• With its strong performance, USA Network is now the #2 entertainment cable network in the demo for 2024.
• TODAY and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt ranked No. 1 in total viewers and the key Adult 25-54 and Adult 18-49 demos during for the two weeks of the 2024 Paris Olympics, according to Nielsen.
• TODAY and Nightly posted their largest Summer Olympics across-the-board advantages vs. the competition since the 2016 Rio Olympics.
• Telemundo Deportes presented the most Spanish-language coverage of an Olympics to date, including the first-ever broadcasts of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies on Telemundo. The network deployed its largest Olympic commentary team, with 40+ hosts, commentators, and in-country reporters, representing the different disciplines and countries relevant to Hispanic audiences.
• Through Thursday, Aug. 8, Paris Olympic viewership on Telemundo increased 26% from the comparable period for the Tokyo Olympics, while Universo viewership spiked 138%. In addition, Telemundo streamed a record 3.1 billion minutes of content through Thursday – up 18% from the full Tokyo Olympics.
• Paris Olympics content registered a record 6.55 billion impressions across NBC Sports social channels – a 184% increase vs. the Tokyo Olympics and 53% above the Rio Olympics.
• In addition, NBC Sports social channels delivered a 497% increase in social video viewership over the Tokyo Olympics and 566% over Rio; they added 4.7 million new followers to the full portfolio of accounts/channels; scored 7X social engagement for On Her Turf over the Tokyo.
• Paris 2024 provided massive scale and high engagement across all platforms for NBCUniversal’s advertising partners – generating both immediate return and lasting impact. The Paris Olympics delivered significant lifts throughout the brand funnel vs. competitive TV among the 30.6 million multiplatform viewers: +27% greater ad attention; +44% greater message recall; +14% higher brand search engagement; +17% increased purchase intent. 
• For NBCUniversal brand partners, this impact among 30.6 million viewers isn’t just transactional – it’s transformational – with 3 in 4 viewers saying they trust Olympic advertisers and 2 in 3 consumers finding Olympics advertisements more credible vs. other ads.
• NBCUniversal delivered the highest Olympic and Paralympic advertising revenue in history for Paris 2024, with more advertisers than Rio and Tokyo combined and more than half a billion dollars coming from first-time sponsors.