Rio 2016 Olympic Media Update

[Sir Rols]

Seven will somehouw have to monetise it, so either through advertising or as a subscription service.

I think they got the plum sequence for Oz audiences - two games (PC and Tokyo) in the perfect time zone for us, and Rio, with most of the prime time big tickets finals in our morning-afternoon. Should be among our highest raters after Sydney.

[Durban Sandshark]

Seven News report celebrating the network's return as "Australia's Olympic Network" for 2016-2020 and likely beyond to 2024. I didn't think Ten was bad in its coverage for Sochi based on what I saw and followed after being away since Seoul. It was planned well with TenPlay, among other things, given that Australia is a still-budding Winter Olympics nation and its perceptable lower clout to Aussies. Nine could've been better in some areas with Vancouver and London on the FTA side. Might have been better if the economic-contracting advertising rates didn't happen.

With the CBC saving money from its ever-shrinking sports department with hockey becoming more of Rogers Sportsnet's production and not a CBC one even while still holding the Olympics, cuts had to made. Longtime CBC sportscasting vets Steve Armitage and Mark Lee became part of the sacrificial lambs:

http://www.examiner.com/article/cbc-lays-off-olympic-broadcasters-armitage-and-lee

Seven has lots of real estate to play with up to 150 hours on a given day. Don't count out FOXTEL just yet, of which it has a great partnership with the AFL productions. Like to know how the Australian radio rights stack up for Seven. It could sell them to 2GB in the Sydney area and the rest to ABC Radio:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/seven-network-nets-olympic-games-hattrick-with-broadcast-rights-to-2020-20140805-100fyo.html

Former Sweden and Iceland soccer coach Lars Lagerbeck joins Glenn Stromberg as a soccer analyst for Viasat's Rio De Janiero 2016 Olympic soccer coverage:

http://www.expressen.se/sport/fotboll/lagerback-forlanger-med-viasat---kor-os/

[Durban Sandshark]

So last night I was perusing through Wikipedia and any Canadian sports media articles and blogs about the new Rogers Sportsnet NHL deal and of TSN when I came across plans of TSN creating TSN3, TSN4, and TSN5 that were primarilly slated for regional NHL team games from the Prairies, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada involving the Winnipeg Jets, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Montreal Canadiens but pushed up for use in the upcoming US Open tennis tournament on August 25. With Rio De Janeiro coming up in 2 years' time, it would make much sense to use those channels for the Olympic coverage in concert with CBC and Rogers Sportsnet with so many events on the Summer side than in winter on the English side. I'd say at least two of them, if not all three, will get used for live footage starting with the soccer tournaments utilizing the world feed with the other for replays, highlights, and news. Online and mobile coverage will still be used, obviously. Question is, will the CBC-led consortium bring its own announcers for it or allow the IOC English world feed for certain sports for the calls with little commercial interruptions? Then again, it can be an outlet for other sports not Olympic-related like college football bowl games and the Little League World Series. Back to the Olympics, it can certainly take some of the burdens off TSN and Rogers Sportsnet with their CFL and Toronto Blue Jays commitments, respectively, when they need to go for them, and urge people to head towards those TSN channels. For Sochi, the Viasat Sport, TV2 Norge, SKY Italia Sport, and Sky Sport NZ multichannels did it really well IMO when it comes to programming and can be used as models to study from. Those TSN channels can designate specific sports to show on them and use replays for late night to early morning.

As for the French contingent, TVA Sports plans to have a TVA Sports 2 that will surely be to some degree for the Olympics along with RDS, RDS2, and maybe RDS Info on cable/digital satellite TV. It can still focus more on the French-Canadian athletes and Summer Olympics sports with strong Quebec interest or maybe expand that scope and be more diverse--and not just Team Canada. If you notice on the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium London 2012 TV schedule, the Canadian Olympic programming was diverse as far internationalism is concerned in both English and French in many sports, particularly ones where Team Canada didn't qualify in them. The Canadian English coverage will always have more TV hours than the French segments, but there's still room for diversity

You know, those TSN channels could also be used for full event coverage and replays of the NCAA Tournament and the women's version too like TNT, TBS, CBS, and TruTV all do in the US while having TSN and TSN2 still focusing on teams with Canadian players with jump-ins as needed. Fun to speculate here on all that.

NBC's reminding us about Rio De Janeiro 2016 and its coverage two years away, starting with its 15-second and 30-second TV spots at the 2 year mark. But, no, it's not a blitz right away just a drip until the 1-year mark as part of its $1.22 billion campaign:

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2014/08/04/Olympics/NBC-Oly.aspx

This is one of them

[Durban Sandshark]

Dan Roan is your new BBC Sports editor. He'll no doubt help steer the direction on how the BBC will cover Rio in two years' time:

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/29342427

[Durban Sandshark]

Brazil the host nation is already making some Olympic broadcasting news, as you would expect from a host nation. Globo already announced its first wave of sportscasters for its share of Olympic broadcasting, both terrestrial and pay-TV with SporTV. In this case, former Brazilian Olympians:

Hortencia Macari (women's basketball)

Daiane Dos Santos (gymnastics)

Gustavo Borges (swimming)

Maurren Maggi (track and field)

Flavio Canto (judo)

Giba, Tande, and Fabi (volleyball)

Shelda (beach volleyball)

http://quemteviuquemtv.pop.com.br/globo-anuncia-comentaristas-para-olimpiadas-de-2016/

We all know how much soccer means to all aspects of Brazilian culture, including especially television. Good that the host broadcasters plan to get this soccer business out of the way early on. Globo TV is going to be the principle and live Brazilian free-to-air TV home for the Rio De Janeiro 2016 Olympic soccer, both men's and women's. Announcers surely TBD but I got some ideas who could do it for Globo TV like Rene Simoes and Sissi. Then again, Globo could just those already in its large soccer broadcasting stable. It's known to gather some serious ratings whenever it shows soccer, more so than any other FTA network (Record, Band, SBT). It's very likely that Globo will sublicense some of the Olympic soccer matches it can't show due to showing other Olympic sports committments to Record and Band--and possibly exclusively keep the gold medal matches on the FTA side, both men's and women's. Not only all that, the IOC also commissioned Globo to produce the global Rio De Janiero 2016 Olympic soccer transmission feed.

http://otvfoco.com.br/audiencia/futebol-sera-transmitido-pela-globo-nas-olimpiadas-de-2016/

For the host Brazilian TV coverage, we know Globo, Record, and Band will handle things on the terrestrial TV front with SporTV and Fox Sports Brazil do likewise on pay-TV now that the World Cup broadcasting is over and can focus on the other massive sports broadcasting project coming. But Brazilian Olympic TV members may get more partners into this. Remains to be seen if ESPN Brasil and SBT will join on this. I'm thinking ESPN Brasil surely will come for this. Would be nice if SBT got back into the Olympic broadcasting, something it hasn't done since Sydney. Back then in Atlanta, Brazil had 5 terrestrial TV networks involved which included now-defunct Manchete TV.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://aventurapassira.blogspot.com/2014/07/globo-band-e-record-transmitirao-as.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtv%2Bglobo%2Bolimpiadas%2B2016%26espv%3D2%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D923

SporTV has two years worth of Olympic-related TV programming in the run-up to Rio coming focusing on Brazil's Olympic medalists and hopefuls in various Olympic sports:

http://sportv.globo.com/site/programas/sportv-news/noticia/2014/08/sportv-tem-programacao-especial-nos-dois-anos-para-olimpiadas.html

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://sportv.globo.com/site/programas/sportv-news/noticia/2014/08/sportv-tem-programacao-especial-nos-dois-anos-para-olimpiadas.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3DsporTV%2Bbrasil%2B2016%2Bolimpiadas%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D923

[Quaker2001]

NBC just showed an Olympic promo during its Ryder Cup coverage noting that Golf Channel would be covering the Olympic Tournament. Not that we didn't already assume that, but good to see NBComcast pushing golf's return to the Olympics.

Worth noting also that the draft of the competition schedule from last September has the men's tournament from Thursday, August 11st through Sunday, August 14th. And the women's tournament is scheduled for Wednesday, August 17th through Saturday, August 20th.

[Durban Sandshark]

I've been wondering now that TSN recently expanded its channel roster to 5 channels in time for the US Open what kind of role will they play in the upcoming Rio De Janiero 2016 Summer Olympics as part of the CBC-led consortium. With TSNs 1-5, I seriously believe that Canadians will see everything televised from Rio with replays with every Olympic sport like we saw planned in Sochi. not just online. At least on the English side. Two years ago, the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium tried but really omitted some sports with CTV, TSN, Rogers Sportsnet, OLN, based on the London TV schedules back then. I also noticed how much more international the Olympic TV programming, both English and French, was in comparison to what the NBC channels did, partly because Canada didn't compete in many team sports and it's only natural your nation gets ample TV play to attract viewers. But CBC can still go all 22 hours on all days of competition (and allow daily room for CBC National News, CBC local news, and The National). CBC/Radio-Canada can always for the most part assign its own sportscasters and even import those from its junior partners (with studio hosts there staying in the Toronto studios). The TSN/Sportsnet channels can mostly go 24 hours, if necessary.

Obviously, with the far more amount of events in the summer than in the winter, some expansion of the channels rosters from the CBC, Bell, and Rogers is going to be needed to capture everything or as much as possible. If Sweden's Viasat sports channels (including the 7 temp OS channels going along with Viasat Sport and Viasat Hockey), SuperSport's and Sky Sport NZ's multiple channels, and TV2 Norge's are an indicator, I'm projecting the Rio 2016 Canadian Summer Olympic English TV roster will be this: CBC, TSN, TSN2, TSN3, TSN4, Rogers Sportsnet, Sportsnet ONE (SN1), Sportsnet 360, and possibly Sportsnet World, and OLN. Not all 5 of the TSN channels will be all-Olympics of course everyday; there will be those Canadian viewers who will feel suffocated by it, which is why I decided not to have TSN5 included on this to have non-Olympic sports programming there. Furthermore, there must be room for those other major Canadian sports broadcasting commitments like the CFL on TSN, Toronto Blue Jays games on Rogers, SportsCentre, and Connected, of which there should be no problem. Olympic programming can be moved to other sports channels on both TSN and Rogers Sportsnet ones With these new TSN channels, some events can be switched over to another channel, simulcasted if schedule allows, and/or replayed or taped events. That shouldn't be an issue since most of the Olympic competition in Rio should be over by the time we're well into our primetime. Some events like the ceremonies, men's and women's gold medal soccer games, men's and women's gold medal basketball matches, can be shown through simulcast. Not to mention starting with all the soccer before the Opening Ceremony (while allowing Canada's games, assuming they qualify, also shown on the CBC). Something tells me that the intro, artwork, and graphics the CBC used for the 2014 FIFA World Cup this summer will get similarly conducted for the CBC Olympics coverage.

Actually, I think the French side would be good, as long it doesn't omit too much, with Radio-Canada Television, RDS, RDS2, RDS INFO, TVA Sports, TVA Sports 2, Explora, and ARTV. On the French side, it can surely focus on the sports that are more appealing to the French-Canadians but also broadening the sports scope. Not all of them will go Olympic 24 hours daily, of course. There's other sports commitments they must adhere to as well. I'll explore this more next time with my thoughts on how it could be all structured or broken down come Rio.

[Durban Sandshark]

TVP Poland is currently experimenting with 4KTV right now and can very well have it ready, in following the BBC's footsteps, by Euro 2016/Rio De Janeiro 2016:

http://www.spidersweb.pl/2014/09/tvp-4k-wykorzystaniu-hbbtv.html

http://pclab.pl/news59814.html

http://www.frazpc.pl/aktualnosci/927079,tvp-zapowiada-testy-telewizji-4k-hbbtv.html

[Durban Sandshark]

No more Sportsmax. With CBI snatching up the broadcasting rights in all platforms in all languages to the Rio De Janeiro 2016 Olympics for the Caribbean including Belize, Guyana, Suriname, and Haiti (excluding Cuba) at least on FTA, I'm sure Dutch and French will be a part of that in the coverage. CBI was seeking a Caribbean Olympics broadcast partner--and it got in ESPN, which pledges to air 12 hours daily on each of its two channels and on Caribbean-sailing cruise ships, plans to help cultivate a high-quality, local on-air sportscasting team for Rio.

http://www.insidethegames.biz/olympics/summer-olympics/2016/1019876-espn-agrees-caribbean-olympic-partnership

TVB Hong Kong expands on its exclusive HK Olympic broadcasting and other media platform rights to Rio De Janeiro 2016 from Sochi 2014, announcing it will air over 400 hours of action from Rio on their 5 free channels to go along with the just-concluded YOG in Nanjing rights. Look for TVB Network Vision to take care of the more comprehensive coverage on the satelitte side. So no more I-Cable there and, especially with the controversy involving them:

http://corporate.tvb.com/article/1c43c72a9c187f521219d284a00d2d9a.html

http://www.marketing-interactive.com/tvb-expands-olympic-broadcast-deal/

[Sagacious]

Who has the rights in South Asia? Star?

[Durban Sandshark]

Still does since the Olympic broadcasting rights in this cycle from Sochi extends to Rio

[Durban Sandshark]

..And also look for Star Sports in the South Asia region to have far more channels and more nonstop hour blocks to show the Summer Olympics on--or maybe even create Olympic-specific channels--than just mostly Star Sports 4 for Sochi.

Looks as though Australians may have ESPN hooking up with the Seven Network for the Olympics from Rio De Janeiro to Tokyo on the pay-TV Olympic front to show the Olympics along with Seven and its FTA digital channels 7Mate and 7TWO:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/seven-west-seals-espn-advertising-deal/story-e6frg8zx-1227084292900?nk=e31d89e6164c6d12f775ee84d4144524

[Durban Sandshark]

..And also look for Star Sports in the South Asia region to have far more channels and more nonstop hour blocks to show the Summer Olympics on--or maybe even create Olympic-specific channels--than just mostly Star Sports 4 for Sochi.

Looks as though Australians may have ESPN hooking up with the Seven Network for the Olympics from Rio De Janeiro to Tokyo on the pay-TV Olympic front to show the Olympics along with Seven and its FTA digital channels 7Mate and 7TWO:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/seven-west-seals-espn-advertising-deal/story-e6frg8zx-1227084292900?nk=e31d89e6164c6d12f775ee84d4144524

[Durban Sandshark]

We got one of the first TV promos for Rio 2016 up on YouTube that came up less than a week ago to launch its "Golden Time on Globo" campaign. Globo TV presents this very good Rio 2016 promo with young aspiring hometown Brazilian hopefuls working hard in hopes of make it to Rio De Janeiro in two years' time in their respective sports aspiring and paying their respects to those that came before them. The inspirational athletes shown in their images turns out to be several internationally successful former Brazilian athletes now on Globo TV's Rio De Janeiro 2016 broadcast team--Hortencia Marcari (basketball), Daiane Dos Santos (gymnastics), Gustavo Borges (swimming), Maurreen Maggi (track and field), Flavio Canto (judo), Tande, Giba, Fabi, and Shelda (volleyball). All these analysts as the public faces of the coverage. Music here is perhaps Iodovico by Einaudi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfwJulHUq7I

Look for Galvao Bueno, Cleber Machado and Luiz Roberto to be the Globo TV Olympic anchors in Rio. But don't rule out seeing Milton Leite, Sergio Maurice, and Luiz Carlos Jr. being a part of that.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://correiodobrasil.com.br/ultimas/a-globo-ja-esta-com-a-equipe-da-olimpiada-escalada/734371/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://correiodobrasil.com.br/ultimas/a-globo-ja-esta-com-a-equipe-da-olimpiada-escalada/734371/%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DRmm%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26channel%3Dsb

Going to be interesting how the cloud technology makes its Summer Olympics with Rio De Janeiro debut now that it is increasingly commonplace

http://www.cloudwedge.com/4891-atos-building-cloud-for-summer-olympics/

Seven Network's Sunrise celebrates its network reclaiming its "Australia's Olympic Network" status complete with a trio of samba dancers

https://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/watch/24631475/the-olympics-come-home-to-seven/

NHK plans to test 8K multichannel sound TV with Super-Hi Definition with Rio translations before going commercial with it two years later:

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/40490/sharp-unveils-its-new-85-inch-8k-tv-with-a-resolution-of-7680x4320/index.html

[Durban Sandshark]

More Brazilian Olympic TV coverage news forthcoming:

If you thought the 2014 FIFA World Cup was such an ambitious project for all the Brazilian TV rights holders in its history--and it seemed it was all of the major TV entities--wait till you hear about Globo's SporTV. SporTV announced it will have 16 PPV Premiere simulatenous channels for the Rio De Janeiro coverage. That's more than 4x as much than during recent past Summer Olympics SporTV showed, meaning you won't miss a thing if you're willing to pay for it outside of the 3 regular SporTV channels with mosaic channels. 40 channels will be made online.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://natelinha.ne10.uol.com.br/noticias/2014/10/17/sportv-tera-16-canais-simultaneos-durante-olimpiadas-do-rio-em-2016-81228.php&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://natelinha.ne10.uol.com.br/noticias/2014/10/17/sportv-tera-16-canais-simultaneos-durante-olimpiadas-do-rio-em-2016-81228.php%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DA6H%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26channel%3Dsb

In Globo TV's return to the Brazilian FTA Olympic coverage, it reveals its commercial 2016 Olympic coverage package plan with hopes of raising R$225 million from sponsors during the next 18 months with high TV audiences expected:

http://natelinha.ne10.uol.com.br/noticias/2014/10/21/globo-lanca-plano-comercial-para-as-olimpiadas-do-rio-2016-81369.php

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://natelinha.ne10.uol.com.br/noticias/2014/10/21/globo-lanca-plano-comercial-para-as-olimpiadas-do-rio-2016-81369.php&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://natelinha.ne10.uol.com.br/noticias/2014/10/21/globo-lanca-plano-comercial-para-as-olimpiadas-do-rio-2016-81369.php%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DqHI%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26channel%3Dsb

[Durban Sandshark]

Band TV just reveals its own 2016 Olympic commercial sponsorship package plans with the desired funds not much different from Globo TV: R$311 million. Also, Band announces it will go all 24 hours daily during its share of its Rio De Janeiro 2016 coverage. For now, this is going to be both Band TV and Band Sports doing this:

http://natelinha.ne10.uol.com.br/noticias/2014/10/29/band-monta-plano-de-patrocinio-para-as-olimpiadas-do-rio-em-2016-81711.php

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://natelinha.ne10.uol.com.br/noticias/2014/10/29/band-monta-plano-de-patrocinio-para-as-olimpiadas-do-rio-em-2016-81711.php&prev=search

[Durban Sandshark]

Let me emphasize here that SporTV will 16 TV channels, including the three pre-existing regular SporTV channels, for the Olympics to cover roughly 5000 hours of coverage, showing everything and very likely some replays like the ceremonies, some full events replays, and even practices like Viasat and the CBC did for Sochi. There will be one mosaic channel as part of these 16 channels showing all what's going on. These channels will occupy the pay-per-view ones currently designated for the Brazilian soccer. Like with past Summer Olympics SporTV broadcasted, it seems likely there will one solely devoted to Brazil's 2014 Rio De Janeiro Olympic Team.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://www.exorbeo.com/2014/10/sportv-tera-16-canais-para-a-cobertura-das-olimpiadas-2016.html&prev=search

Record apparently sold some sub-partial rights to SBT, a Brazilian TV network that dissolved its sports department since airing its last Summer Olympics in Barcelona to going with selling rights to Globo TV and Band TV and battling with Record for second place in the Brazilian network ratings.

For Italy it will be RAI and SKY Sport Italia sharing the Italian TV coverage of Rio De Janeiro 2016. RAI, the Italian public broadcaster and making its return to bonafide comprehensive Olympic broadcasting since Beijing 2008, paid 60 million euros to broadcast 400 hours on its RAI TV channels with RAI 2 as the official Olympic channel, RaiSport, RaiSport 1 and RaiSport 2, with some special Olympic broadcast programming on RAI 1. All in HD. Meanwhile, it paid Sky Italia Sport somewhere likely in the upper areas from between 50-100 million euros as a co-broadcaster, varying range reportedly from different Italian newspaper sources. But here's an interesting thing with RAI's coverage: it cannot be encrypted. SKY will continue as it usually does with its Olympic coverage and being very comprehensive in its channels with a mosaic channel, such is the trend for pay-TV multichannel Olympic coverage worldwide for over the last two decades:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.digital-sat.it/ds-news.php%3Fid%3D34141&prev=search

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=search&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=it&u=http://www.tvblog.it/post/352713/olimpiadi-2016-la-rai-trasmettera-i-giochi-di-rio-sky-quelle-di-sochi-mistero-sulle-paralimpiadi&usg=ALkJrhj1VagzO92ebaMnOWLlhGws7Uy8Jg

[Sir Rols]

Rio swimming finals set for 10pm

For anybody on the east coast of the United States who was hoping that a Western Hemisphere Olympics would mean a prime-time television time slot for swimming, there’s always 2020.

According to Brazil’s Blog do Coach, at a meeting last week between Olympic organizers and FINA in Switzerland last week, the competition schedule was approved with a 1PM local start time for prelims, and a 10PM local start time for finals to accommodate the schedules of the television networks that own the rights.

What this likely means is that the 7-9PM primetime slot will be reserved for NBC’s typical “mass consumption” highlight package of the day’s best moments with look-ins around many sports, followed by the full airing of the swimming afterward (though that is speculative at this point).

It will still be a solid time slot for the Central time zone and the Mountain time zone, though the west coast may not see the swimming until later in the evening live on NBC.

That time converts to:

• Noon/9PM U.S./Canada East Coast time
• 9AM/6PM U.S/Canada West Coast Time
• 11PM/8AM Perth/Beijing Time
• Midnight/9AM Tokyo Time
• 2AM/11AM Sydney Time
• 6PM/3AM Moscow Time
• 3PM/Midnight London Time
• 5PM/2AM South Africa Time

SwimSwam

[Durban Sandshark]

Thanks Sir Rokula for the info. Seems favorable for us here in the US timewise. Like the koala vampire!

SuperSport is currently airing a weekly Rio De Janerio 2016 Olympic preview series called Road To Rio. Last time I checked from its online TV schedule it's at its 22nd episode.

[Barcelona_'92]

Rio swimming finals set for 10pm

For anybody on the east coast of the United States who was hoping that a Western Hemisphere Olympics would mean a prime-time television time slot for swimming, there’s always 2020.

According to Brazil’s Blog do Coach, at a meeting last week between Olympic organizers and FINA in Switzerland last week, the competition schedule was approved with a 1PM local start time for prelims, and a 10PM local start time for finals to accommodate the schedules of the television networks that own the rights.

What this likely means is that the 7-9PM primetime slot will be reserved for NBC’s typical “mass consumption” highlight package of the day’s best moments with look-ins around many sports, followed by the full airing of the swimming afterward (though that is speculative at this point).

It will still be a solid time slot for the Central time zone and the Mountain time zone, though the west coast may not see the swimming until later in the evening live on NBC.

That time converts to:

• Noon/9PM U.S./Canada East Coast time
• 9AM/6PM U.S/Canada West Coast Time
• 11PM/8AM Perth/Beijing Time
• Midnight/9AM Tokyo Time
• 2AM/11AM Sydney Time
• 6PM/3AM Moscow Time
• 3PM/Midnight London Time
• 5PM/2AM South Africa Time

SwimSwam

Not sure why they're saying that swimming won't be in primetime in 2016--9pm Eastern is actually an hour earlier than the swimming finals started in 2008.

[Quaker2001]

Not sure why they're saying that swimming won't be in primetime in 2016--9pm Eastern is actually an hour earlier than the swimming finals started in 2008.

I was thinking the same thing.. apparently these guys don't know what 'primetime' is. I have no doubt this is exactly where NBC wants the swim finals to start/finish.

[Barcelona_'92]

I was thinking the same thing.. apparently these guys don't know what 'primetime' is. I have no doubt this is exactly where NBC wants the swim finals to start/finish.

The main question I have now is when will the gymnastics finals be scheduled? They could start at 7pm Eastern so that NBC can show them live in full before the swimming. 8pm Eastern is probably the latest they could start without running past midnight in Rio. I wonder if they might actually be held in afternoon and shown live on NBCSN, with packaged coverage in primetime, just like NBC did with figure skating this year. Then NBC could start primetime at 8pm with a live beach volleyball match, followed by a mix of live swimming and taped gymnastics from 9pm-midnight. Live gymnastics would boost NBCSN's ratings considerably without depleting NBC's primetime ratings, since everyone would still tune in for the live swimming.

[Quaker2001]

The main question I have now is when will the gymnastics finals be scheduled? They could start at 7pm Eastern so that NBC can show them live in full before the swimming. 8pm Eastern is probably the latest they could start without running past midnight in Rio. I wonder if they might actually be held in afternoon and shown live on NBCSN, with packaged coverage in primetime, just like NBC did with figure skating this year. Then NBC could start primetime at 8pm with a live beach volleyball match, followed by a mix of live swimming and taped gymnastics from 9pm-midnight. Live gymnastics would boost NBCSN's ratings considerably without depleting NBC's primetime ratings, since everyone would still tune in for the live swimming.

There's too much going on at a Summer Olympics as opposed to a Winter for them to do what they did with figure skating from Sochi and show the gymnastics twice, so I don't see that happening, particularly if you're talking about a gap of only a couple of hours (contrast that with Sochi where the 2 airings of figure skating were 10 hours apart). NBCSN will have plenty of events to show and they won't be in a position to upstage NBC like they were with a Winter Olympics.

1 of the key questions for me is what are NBC's windows on a typical day. Is the daytime show still something like 10am-5pm? Does primetime start at 7 ET (8pm local in Rio) or at 8 ET as it has since Athens. If it's 7 ET, maybe that's where gymnastics starts. I don't think they would want to mix live and taped like that.

[Team USA]

Doesn't matter too me will still always be Tape Delayed until 7PM PDT. Really needs to starts at 7 EDT/ 4 PDT in all times zones then shortened replay at 8/9 PM PDT. O well at least I might be in Rio and if not can watch the cable channels or online live streams

[Quaker2001]

Doesn't matter too me will still always be Tape Delayed until 7PM PDT. Really needs to starts at 7 EDT/ 4 PDT in all times zones then shortened replay at 8/9 PM PDT. O well at least I might be in Rio and if not can watch the cable channels or online live streams

From a business standpoint.. not going to happen. Those of you on the West coast can keep posting your #nbcfail's to Twitter while NBC continues to ignore you over the sound of all the money they're making.