NBC's Olympic Coverage An Olympic Marathon

NBC's Olympic Coverage An Olympic Marathon


NBC's coverage plans for the Beijing Olympics are nothing short of Olympian. More than the most extensive coverage of a sporting event, it's what network spokesman Mike McCarley is calling "the most ambitious single media project in history."

The 3,600 hours of streamed and broadcast coverage are more than the total of all previous televised Summer Olympics in U.S. history.

That includes the 20 hours of coverage CBS aired in 1960 and the 1,120 hours NBC ran the last time around, at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

"We're blown away," Dick Ebersol, the Litchfield resident who is chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics told reporters at the TV critics press tour last month in a satellite hookup from Beijing. "We're awed by the enormity of what's going to be done here."

Of the 3,600 hours of coverage, 2,900 will be live — which will be a boon for prime time. The time difference is 12 hours from Beijing to the Eastern time zone in the U.S., but that allows a lot of events held in the morning there to run live here. It will represent the most live events in prime time since Atlanta 12 years ago, Ebersol said. And that includes the most popular of the 34 sports in the U.S.: gymnastics, swimming and beach volleyball.

NBC will show its 225 hours in three daily chunks, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., in prime time from 8 to 11:30 p.m. and late night from midnight to 1:30 a.m.

But there will be a lot to show on five network properties on cable: MSNBC carries 175 hours from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. CNBC will carry 95.5 hours of coverage from midnight to 4:30 a.m. and 5-8 p.m. USA's 165 hours are set for mornings beginning in the middle of the night, from 2 a.m. to noon. Oxygen's 20 hours of early evening coverage from 6-8 p.m. will concentrate largely on gymnastics, tennis, synchronized swimming and equestrian events. The Spanish language Telemundo provides 380 hours of coverage online and on the air, from 2-6 a.m., 8-10 a.m. and midnight to 1 a.m.

MSNBC and Telemundo will also run the opening round Olympic soccer coverage Wednesday and Thursday; the Opening Ceremony Friday airs 8 p.m. to midnight on NBC; the Closing Ceremony airs 7-11 p.m. on Aug. 24.

"I think the country is really ready for this," Ebersol said. "It isn't exactly a joyful time in America right now, with $4 dollar gas, people who can't afford vacations, wild prices on food and so forth. They're really looking for something to cheer for. This American team, these Olympic athletes, certainly offer that."

But it won't all be about the Americans.

"By the very nature of the fact that Americans are in every event, people may think that our coverage is dominant in that way," Ebersol says. "But we cover as many foreign athletes as we do domestic."

Bob Costas, who will be covering his eighth Olympics, his seventh as anchor, chimes in: "Are Americans somewhat more interested in American performers? Of course they are, but we don't insult the intelligence of the audience. They're interested in any good story wherever it may appear."

And there will be some other adjustments to the coverage, starting with those mini-features on so many athletes.

"We learned our lessons finally after Sydney [in 2000] that we probably had too many features," Ebersol said. "It became more important for us to have our announcers tell more stories. We still have 60 or 70 features to get in over 17 days, little profiles. But now they're almost uniformly two minutes or less. They're split between the home team, American team, and international athletes."

It's still important to tell the stories, but it will largely be done this time around by the announcers themselves during the competitions, Ebersol says.

"The average American not only doesn't know the foreign athletes in the Olympic sports, they don't know the American athletes in the Olympic sports," he says. "So it is important for you to have an understanding, for you to have a rooting interest, for our announcers to lay that all out. And they do a very good job of it now."

Just about everybody from NBC will be there.

"NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" will broadcast live from Beijing during the Games. The "Today" broadcasts from China begin Mondaywith the cast of Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, Ann Curry and Al Roker there for the duration. The weekend "Today" cast of Lester Holt, Amy Robach and Jenna Wolfe will also be there.

The bulk of live coverage comes online with 2,200 hours covering 25 sports.

"We'll essentially take every sport and offer it on-demand," says Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. "We'll take the best of our television coverage every day and offer it as encores. And, of course, we'll have a huge volume of highlights, all of this at the fingertips of the Olympic fan."

Some 3,000 hours of "highlights, rewinds and encores" will be available online at NBCOlympics.com.

And the other thing viewers will notice this time around, if they haven't already during the Olympic trials, is the crispness of the high-definition pictures.

"These will be the first-ever Olympics broadcast 100 percent in high definition. And that's really quite a leap if you think about the fact that just four years ago in Athens, we presented only five sports plus the opening and closing ceremonies in HD," says David Neal, executive producer of NBC Sports.

Costas will anchor the prime time coverage on NBC, Jim Lampley will handle daytime, with Mary Carillo sitting in for late night coverage. Other Olympic correspondents include Cris Collinsworth and Jimmy Roberts, with Alex Flanagan and Matt Vasgersian on USA; Bill Patrick and Melissa Stark on MSNBC; Lindsay Czarniak on Oxygen and a CNBC boxing crew including Fred Roggin, Teddy Atlas, Bob Papa and Jim Gray.