The days of tape delayed Olympic coverage on NBC may or may not be over, but viewers will eventually have the option to view all Olympic events live.
Every Olympic event will be made available live “on one platform or another,” new NBC Sports Group president Mark Lazarus said in a conference call Tuesday to announce NBC Universal’s acquisition of the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 Olympic Games.
This does not necessarily mean the NBC broadcast network will end the practice of airing events on tape delay. However, viewers will at least now be able to see those events as they occur via various other platforms.
According to Lazarus, NBC has acquired the rights to the Olympics on tablet, mobile, broadband, and “every now known or to be known or still to be conceived set of rights.”
Even if live Olympic coverage is available on the phone or online, there no reason to believe viewers have seen the last of tape delay on NBC. For years, NBC has delayed airing marquee events for hours until the start of primetime coverage in each time zone. In 2004, an NBC executive summed up the network’s motives succinctly:
“We have over $1 billion in revenues at stake. That means, for better or worse, that we’re not public TV. We’ve got three constituency groups that are our priorities: our audience, our affiliates, and our advertisers. We owe it to all of them to put the biggest events on when the greatest audience is available. That means tape delay in prime time” (boston.com, 6/13/04).
Even with the new Comcast regime, it appears that NBC’s motivations have not changed. Lazarus said Thursday that NBC will continue to “package prime time … to make it available to garner the most viewers.”
In other words, while all events will be available live on other platforms, tape delayed coverage figures to continue on NBC.
(Information from npr.org, boston.com, adage.com)
