NBC Universal Sports and Olympics has announced an unprecedented level of coverage for this summer’s Olympic Games from Athens.
The network plans 24-hour coverage totaling 1204 hours on seven platforms, including NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Bravo, Telemundo and an NBC HD platform. The network plans to provide more than 70 hours of Olympic coverage per day for the 17 days of the games (Aug. 13-29).
This year’s Summer Olympics marks the first time a U.S. broadcaster will provide HD coverage. NBC's HDTV affiliates will offer separate coverage in HD from several venues in Athens. The HD coverage on NBC digital affiliates totals 399 hours and accounts for the vast majority of the increased coverage.
NBC's digital affiliates will provide delayed HDTV coverage of six sports from the only main Olympic venues provided in HD by the Olympic host broadcaster. Those sports include swimming, diving, gymnastics, track and field, medal rounds of basketball and the men's soccer gold medal final. The coverage will be a separate production from the SD broadcast on the network. NBC has 124 HDTV affiliates with the potential to cover 86 percent of the country.
USA Network will provide 49 hours of Olympics coverage, and Telemundo's Spanish-language broadcast will provide the first exclusively non-English language Olympic broadcast in U.S. television history.
