NEW YORK — NBC is making more than 2,200 hours of live competition from Beijing available online, giving Olympic junkies more action than they could ever devour in a day.
After barely tipping its toe in the digital world during past Olympics, the network will dive into the deep end: live blogging, 3,000 hours of highlights on demand, daily recaps and analysis and even fantasy league gaming. That’s in addition to the 1,400 hours of coverage planned on six television networks, more than the combined total of every previous Summer Olympics.
NBC’s digital plans, however, have angered media outlets that worry the company is being heavy-handed in enforcing its rights to exclusive Olympic access.
The network launched NBCOlympics.com in 2000, but then it offered only still pictures and schedule information to drive viewers to its television coverage. A limited package of highlights from Athens was available in 2004, but those visiting the NBC site were required to enter a credit card number, even though they weren’t charged, and that drove away traffic.
NBC quietly experimented by beaming live over the Internet the hockey gold-medal game from the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. The change in scope to what it is offering this year is staggering.
“We’re excited about what we are putting into the fingertips of the Olympics fan,” said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. “We think it will generate a tremendous amount of engagement. We think it will generate more television viewership.”
That’s the danger for a TV network that offers so much online content: that people will turn off the TV in favor of the computer. Zenkel said there was worry in the past as NBC increased the level of events available on television that saturation would drive down viewership, but it turned out not to be the case.
The Associated Press has an agreement with NBC to distribute video links to the network’s content online.
The computer coverage will also play a clear secondary role to TV. No events that are scheduled to be televised will be available online until after they are seen on TV, said Perkins Miller, senior vice president for digital media at NBC Sports.
The Web site will offer a full TV viewers’ guide, track medal standings and give real-time results. It will have bios of more than 10,000 athletes, NBC said.
“It’s not that we aren’t nervous,” Zenkel said. “It’s not that we haven’t taken an enormous amount on. But we’re up to it and we’re going to perform as we always have in the past.”
There’s been some brewing tension about the rights of other media organizations to cover the event; NBC paid $3.5 billion to the International Olympics Committee to televise the five Olympics through Beijing. Other TV networks have a limited window in which to show Olympics highlights, but no video of Olympic events is permitted to be shown on any Web site besides NBCOlympics.com.
NBC has allowed video of Olympic trials events to be shown on other Web sites, but each site is required to link to NBCOlympics.com. All of that video must come down Aug. 7, the day before the Beijing Games start.
That’s going to limit the ability of Swimming World magazine, which has a heavy online component, to offer material to its users, said Brent Rutemiller, the magazine’s publisher. He’s also upset that limits have been placed on where other organizations can interview athletes, and that they were extended to coaches and officials.
Zenkel said NBC was being fair to other organizations.
“NBC is the organization that paid a very significant rights fee for the exclusive rights to the Olympics and for that, the exclusivity will be protected,” he said. “But it’s not to the detriment of the Olympics fan. In fact, it’s to their benefit.”
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