Streaming Olympics Pays Off For NBC

Olympic-BB2NBC has been posting big digital video usage results from the London Olympics versus the Beijing Games four years ago. The network has seen nearly a 200% rise in total video streamed to 75 million, with over a 300% rise in live streams to 34 million.

NBC has been pulling in an average of 31.5 million unique viewers on laptop/computer use versus 29.1 million uniques at the Beijing Games.

NBC previously said it earned some $60 million in advertising sales for its digital platform efforts.

Mobile users accessing the NBCOlympics Web site have nearly doubled from the Beijing Games -- to 5.2 million from 2.8 million. Those using NBC Olympics Live Extra app -- which specifically bring live, re-air, and highlighted video -- have posted 7.0 million users.

NBC has been implementing the first major use of so-called "TV Everywhere" authentication efforts, giving free Olympic coverage access to U.S. TV consumers who have cable, satellite, or telco TV monthly service. This comes to more than 90% of all 115 million U.S. TV homes. NBC says 6.2 million phone/tablet devices have been verified for the games.

Some of the best individual digital live video results come from traditional TV's most popular Olympic sports -- swimming and gymnastics.

NBC says five Olympic events so far have surpassed 1 million live streams; Tuesday’s women’s gymnastics team gold medal final pulled nearly 1.5 million. On Thursday night, two swimming events pulled over 1 million -- one when Michael Phelps defeated the field, including Ryan Lochte, to win the gold in the men’s 200 individual medley. That event hit 1.2 million streams. All-around U.S. gold medal gymnastics winner Gabby Douglas grabbed almost 1.1 million streams.

Monday’s men’s gymnastics team gold medal final hit 1.6 streams; and Tuesday’s swimming gold medal final scored 1 million. NBC says four of the five events (yesterday’s swimming final being the exception) were streamed only to cable, satellite and telco customers who verified their accounts.

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1 comment about "Streaming Olympics Pays Off For NBC".
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  1. Darrin Stephens from McMann & Tate, August 3, 2012 at 3:41 p.m.

    What NBC is not releasing is time spent per stream. And are they counting an ad served as a separate stream?

    NBC never released true stream vs TV viewing figures for 2008, just the cume numbers you're seeing in the above story.

    On a minutes-viewed basis, over 99% of the 2008 Games were watched on TV.

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