Sochi 2014 Olympic Media Updates

[Quaker2001]

Also noted in the article.. Lester Holt will host NBC's weekday afternoon coverage. And Dan Patrick, who we knew would be hosting somewhere in Sochi, will appear on NBCSN

[Durban Sandshark]

American Sochi Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls in various sports are eagerly awaiting Bob Costas interviewing me, 3 dropped pucks, 5 Olympic rings, and 12 new events, among other things, in Sochi as part of this wish-fufilling and hilarious Christmas carol sendup with the 12 Days of Sochi. Lots of fun to be had during filming. Sure many of them can't sing. But they're enjoying themselves letting loose with this as we are now officially into the holiday season .

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/olympic-hopefuls-sing-sochi-wishes-661002

[ofan]

Quite possibly the worst video I've ever seen.

[JMarkSnow2012]

Quite possibly the worst video I've ever seen.

Goes wrong from the start really- by the time NBC viewers get to see the (brutally edited) Opening Ceremony, it'll probably already be the next (Second) day in Sochi.

[Barcelona_'92]

Also noted in the article.. Lester Holt will host NBC's weekday afternoon coverage. And Dan Patrick, who we knew would be hosting somewhere in Sochi, will appear on NBCSN

Interesting that they're putting Al Michaels and Dan Patrick on NBCSN instead of NBC this time. I'm guessing there will be a lot of medal events on NBCSN in addition to hockey and curling, which is pretty much all that aired on the cable networks in 2010.

[Quaker2001]

Interesting that they're putting Al Michaels and Dan Patrick on NBCSN instead of NBC this time. I'm guessing there will be a lot of medal events on NBCSN in addition to hockey and curling, which is pretty much all that aired on the cable networks in 2010.

I was thinking the same thing. Seemed like an odd split to put Michaels on NBCSN during the week but shift him over to NBC on the weekend. Why not have Michaels on NBC daytime the whole Olympics and put Lester Holt on cable somewhere. The recent articles on NBCSN have described their coverage as "extensive" and "live." Obviously we'd figure the latter is a given, but I'm curious to see just how extensive it is. Like you said, the cable nets since Salt Lake have largely just been a steady diet of hockey, curling, and a little biathlon (which was mostly on NBC in the afternoon slot from Vancouver). There's room in the schedule for NBCSN to show more than that, especially if they're on all day when competition is going on in Sochi. I'm very anxious to see what they have to offer because I think this could be a big step forward from past Winter Olympics. I hope that's not just wishful thinking on my part.

[Durban Sandshark]

Goes wrong from the start really- by the time NBC viewers get to see the (brutally edited) Opening Ceremony, it'll probably already be the next (Second) day in Sochi.

It actually WILL be the next day Saturday when NBC viewers finally see the brutally edited Opening Ceremony. Sochi's 11 hours ahead my US/Canada Central Time Zone or 10 hours away from the US East Coast. In fact, competition will already get well underway by the time we see the tape-delay on primetime, not just the late night replay coming later. BTW, it will be the third day of the Sochi Winter Olympics and the second day of competition with the first day actually being on Thursday February 6, unless you are actually thinking that.

[Quaker2001]

It actually WILL be the next day Saturday when NBC viewers finally see the brutally edited Opening Ceremony. Sochi's 11 hours ahead my US/Canada Central Time Zone or 10 hours away from the US East Coast. In fact, competition will already get well underway by the time we see the tape-delay on primetime, not just the late night replay coming later. BTW, it will be the third day of the Sochi Winter Olympics and the second day of competition with the first day actually being on Thursday February 6, unless you are actually thinking that.

Sochi is 9 hours ahead of the East coast, not 10. It's 10 hours ahead of the Central Time Zone. And yes, competition begins on the 6th, the day before the Opening Ceremony.

Goes wrong from the start really- by the time NBC viewers get to see the (brutally edited) Opening Ceremony, it'll probably already be the next (Second) day in Sochi.

Yes, this is true, NBC viewers will see an edited version of the Opening Ceremony hours after the fact. Those smart enough to realize that NBC will be live streaming everything online, in its entirety (viewable on that computer you used to make that post) can watch it as its happening. As long as the streaming is working (granted, that's a big IF after how poorly it went in London), I have little sympathy for folks who are choosing to watch the delayed airing on NBC when they could be watching it live online.

[Durban Sandshark]

Unless they lack the access to a computer, tablet, or smartphone at those times, which of course the numbers of them are decreasing. Sometimes in the case of computers it's also can be using public ones at a library where access is timed.

You know what? NBC hasn't yet announced who its Sochi 2014 Internet streaming hookup will be after dumping YouTube. Silverlight to me was a disaster and wasn't fully accessible to everybody. Can't think NBC is conducting that by themselves. I'm thinking the live streaming issues back in London was more conspiratorial so as to get the American public to watch them on NBC's TV networks. Maybe NBC does not want to have anybody, not even the IOC-assigned English sportscasters, covering the live streaming within their borders. NBC surely has the bucks to have its sportscasters covering the events live and its entirety online instead of its edited TV presentations at least in some cases and can organize the broadcast both online and TV to make seemless differences, if needed. Won't be surprising come February if all this rears its ugly head again. And it's always about the money.

[JMarkSnow2012]

BTW, it will be the third day of the Sochi Winter Olympics and the second day of competition with the first day actually being on Thursday February 6, unless you are actually thinking that.

Good point; I'd forgotten that NBC intend to broadcast some of the pre-opening events as warm-ups.

Those smart enough to realize that NBC will be live streaming everything online, in its entirety (viewable on that computer you used to make that post) can watch it as its happening. As long as the streaming is working (granted, that's a big IF after how poorly it went in London), I have little sympathy for folks who are choosing to watch the delayed airing on NBC when they could be watching it live online.

I wonder if the live version will look significantly different from the primetime version in terms of breaks and shot choices.

[Quaker2001]

I wonder if the live version will look significantly different from the primetime version in terms of breaks and shot choices.

I don't wonder, I know the answer to that one already.. without a doubt it will look different. What you'll be seeing in the online version is more than likely the raw world feed of the Ceremony. No commercials (aside from whatever ads NBC inserts), no editing, probably no commentators as well. It'll be a completely different product than what's shown on TV in primetime. And personally, I think that's a great thing because I'm very much the type of person that will watch it twice, once live in the afternoon online, and then later on TV with whatever NBC does to it. The irony is that so many people will be too busy complaining and posting their #nbcfail nonsense to realize that the coverage is live online if they want it (assuming they can authenticate, which brings me to)..

Unless they lack the access to a computer, tablet, or smartphone at those times, which of course the numbers of them are decreasing. Sometimes in the case of computers it's also can be using public ones at a library where access is timed.

That's a pretty low number these days. And yes, I know there's an aspect of this where you need to have a pay TV subscription (which I believe you don't) to access the online coverage. But if the issue is that you don't have a computer or a mobile device to view the Olympics, that one I'm not going to listen to the complaints over.

You know what? NBC hasn't yet announced who its Sochi 2014 Internet streaming hookup will be after dumping YouTube. Silverlight to me was a disaster and wasn't fully accessible to everybody. Can't think NBC is conducting that by themselves. I'm thinking the live streaming issues back in London was more conspiratorial so as to get the American public to watch them on NBC's TV networks. Maybe NBC does not want to have anybody, not even the IOC-assigned English sportscasters, covering the live streaming within their borders. NBC surely has the bucks to have its sportscasters covering the events live and its entirety online instead of its edited TV presentations at least in some cases and can organize the broadcast both online and TV to make seemless differences, if needed. Won't be surprising come February if all this rears its ugly head again. And it's always about the money.

That's 1 of the most absurd things I've ever seen. You think NBC intentionally sabotaged their own streaming coverage so that more people would watch on TV? Do you realize how dumb that is? There are already enough people who are angry at NBC for their Olympic coverage. The last thing they'd want to do is anger them further by offering them a product but making it sub-standard. If those people are viewing internet coverage and are frustrated by that, they're not going to gravitate towards the TV coverage, they're going to turn it off entirely, and/or they're going to look for less than legal means for view coverage online.

[Barcelona_'92]

I was thinking the same thing. Seemed like an odd split to put Michaels on NBCSN during the week but shift him over to NBC on the weekend. Why not have Michaels on NBC daytime the whole Olympics and put Lester Holt on cable somewhere. The recent articles on NBCSN have described their coverage as "extensive" and "live." Obviously we'd figure the latter is a given, but I'm curious to see just how extensive it is. Like you said, the cable nets since Salt Lake have largely just been a steady diet of hockey, curling, and a little biathlon (which was mostly on NBC in the afternoon slot from Vancouver). There's room in the schedule for NBCSN to show more than that, especially if they're on all day when competition is going on in Sochi. I'm very anxious to see what they have to offer because I think this could be a big step forward from past Winter Olympics. I hope that's not just wishful thinking on my part.

I'm expecting the cross-country events, biathlon, and maybe preliminary rounds of freestyle skiing, snowboarding, and the sliding events to end up on NBCSN. If they're going to show every hockey game live, they'll have to put a lot of games on NBCSN even with the 100+ hours of hockey and curling on the other three cable networks. I'm guessing the NBC schedule will look similar to Vancouver, with 2 hours in the afternoon, 4 hours in primetime, and 1-1.5 hours in late night. The real surprise for me will be if they show any top events (like alpine skiing) live on NBCSN and then re-package them for primetime.

That's 1 of the most absurd things I've ever seen. You think NBC intentionally sabotaged their own streaming coverage so that more people would watch on TV? Do you realize how dumb that is? There are already enough people who are angry at NBC for their Olympic coverage. The last thing they'd want to do is anger them further by offering them a product but making it sub-standard. If those people are viewing internet coverage and are frustrated by that, they're not going to gravitate towards the TV coverage, they're going to turn it off entirely, and/or they're going to look for less than legal means for view coverage online.

Seriously--the reason why there were so many problems with the streaming coverage in 2012 is because at any given time, more than 2 million people were watching streams. It was by far the most extensive streaming event in U.S. history. NBC clearly wasn't ready for that capacity in the first few days of the Games, but by the third or fourth day, I didn't have problems using Firefox with an ad blocker. I don't anticipate NBC will have many problems with streaming in Sochi--there's less interest in the Winter Games, and I doubt they'll have the same level of traffic that they did in 2012.

[Quaker2001]

I'm expecting the cross-country events, biathlon, and maybe preliminary rounds of freestyle skiing, snowboarding, and the sliding events to end up on NBCSN. If they're going to show every hockey game live, they'll have to put a lot of games on NBCSN even with the 100+ hours of hockey and curling on the other three cable networks. I'm guessing the NBC schedule will look similar to Vancouver, with 2 hours in the afternoon, 4 hours in primetime, and 1-1.5 hours in late night. The real surprise for me will be if they show any top events (like alpine skiing) live on NBCSN and then re-package them for primetime.

I posted this on another site, but here's what I could see the schedule looking like for the first Saturday of the Olympics (this is purely speculation on my part, nothing more..

NBCSN (12:30am-1pm)

12:30am - 2:00am - Men's Slopestyle (Live)

2:00am - 3:00am - Preview of the hockey tournament

3:00am - 5:30am - USA-Finland women's hockey (Live)

5:30am - 6:30am - Women's cross-country (time-shifted from 5am start time)

6:30am - 9:30am - Men's 5000m speedskating (Live and in full)

9:30am - 11:30am - Men's Biathlon (Live)

11:30am - 12:30pm - Men's ski jumping (Live)

MSNBC (8:00am-10:30am) [This is official]

Women's Hockey - Canada vs. Switzerland

NBC (? - 2:00pm-6:00pm)

Men's Slopestyle qualifying (replay from earlier)

Women's Moguls qualifying

Men's Luge - 1st Run

NBC Primetime

Team figure skating

Men's Slopestyle final

Women's Moguls final

NBC Late Night

Men's Luge - 2nd run

Of course, once the hockey and curling starts in full, it complicates things. And the Sochi schedule isn't quite as friendly in terms of TV coverage as Vancouver was, not just because of the timezones, but more because of the overlap of events. So most days don't come together quite this efficiently. What's going to hurt NBCSN is those instances where they have to wedge an event between, say, 2 hockey games and have to time-shift it. I'm fine with that, I just hope MSNBC and USA take enough of the onus off NBCSN that they can be on the air a solid 15 hours a day (from Midnight ET, when the curling starts each day, until 3pm ET when the hockey is done) and cover a number of sports. I'd rather they do that then cram more into primetime and be forced to show less of certain events. As someone who couldn't care less about figure skating, not looking forward to where they've added 2 additional nights to the figure skating schedule.

[BTHarner]

Before we get too excited here, let's recall the long discussion we had last year whether NBC was going to stream the OC live and in the end they decided that the ceremony was not a sporting event but an entertainment spectacle and did not stream it live. They did stream the closing though (a last minute decision). Has it been said for certain that the OC will be streamed? If so., I will need to arrange for a personal day at work since it starts at 1114 EST.

[yoshi]

Times like this when all Brits should realise how lucky we are to have the BBC.

[Quaker2001]

Before we get too excited here, let's recall the long discussion we had last year whether NBC was going to stream the OC live and in the end they decided that the ceremony was not a sporting event but an entertainment spectacle and did not stream it live. They did stream the closing though (a last minute decision). Has it been said for certain that the OC will be streamed? If so., I will need to arrange for a personal day at work since it starts at 1114 EST.

That was hardly a last minute decision.. that was a response to the incredible amount of backlash NBC got for not streaming the Opening Ceremony and their piss poor explanation for not doing so. They learned quickly and harshly from that mistake. They haven't said it outright, but I'd bet the farm they'll stream both ceremonies from Sochi. They'd be foolish not to.

[Durban Sandshark]

That was hardly a last minute decision.. that was a response to the incredible amount of backlash NBC got for not streaming the Opening Ceremony and their piss poor explanation for not doing so. They learned quickly and harshly from that mistake. They haven't said it outright, but I'd bet the farm they'll stream both ceremonies from Sochi. They'd be foolish not to.

I agree. NBC better show both ceremonies live online. They're STILL sports-related after all.

Quaker2001, on 03 Dec 2013 - 1:42 PM, said:

I don't wonder, I know the answer to that one already.. without a doubt it will look different. What you'll be seeing in the online version is more than likely the raw world feed of the Ceremony. No commercials (aside from whatever ads NBC inserts), no editing, probably no commentators as well. It'll be a completely different product than what's shown on TV in primetime. And personally, I think that's a great thing because I'm very much the type of person that will watch it twice, once live in the afternoon online, and then later on TV with whatever NBC does to it. The irony is that so many people will be too busy complaining and posting their #nbcfail nonsense to realize that the coverage is live online if they want it (assuming they can authenticate, which brings me to)..

That's a pretty low number these days. And yes, I know there's an aspect of this where you need to have a pay TV subscription (which I believe you don't) to access the online coverage. But if the issue is that you don't have a computer or a mobile device to view the Olympics, that one I'm not going to listen to the complaints over.

That's 1 of the most absurd things I've ever seen. You think NBC intentionally sabotaged their own streaming coverage so that more people would watch on TV? Do you realize how dumb that is? There are already enough people who are angry at NBC for their Olympic coverage. The last thing they'd want to do is anger them further by offering them a product but making it sub-standard. If those people are viewing internet coverage and are frustrated by that, they're not going to gravitate towards the TV coverage, they're going to turn it off entirely, and/or they're going to look for less than legal means for view coverage online.

OK, there should be access to the live IOC world feed for the streaming, especially for events that could be time-shifted on the NBC cable networks for those who seek an alternative to be seen live online in absence of commercials, editing, and commentating (though in a lot of cases now, the visuals and editing are almost the same on broadcasts judging from London interspersed with some domestic-favoring scenes to the target national audiences). I think there will be an option to just hear from the venue and not the commentators. So yeah, it'll be completely different--and refreshing in plenty of cases given the massive NBC complaints. I too wouldn't mind seeing it twice, as long as the event I see comes as it happens is complete and can see a review or highlights later on NBC primetime.

May be hope for me soon to get some digital satelitte TV soon enough before the Sochi Winter Olympics by late January and a possible laptop, tablet, and smartphone each forthcoming. Fingers crossed! I was also referring to those who prefer to see them as it happens but can't get access from a straight TV nearby; on-demand is the easy part and won't have to worry over the authentication by then. There's something special and intangible about seeing things live. As long as the specific event is there to watch in any case, I personally won't complain for there obviously exists alternatives. Makes for a nice and reasonable compromise.

Apologies for those "absurd" thoughts I had. Was trying to conjure thoughts in the absence of thinking of the possibility that NBC, as Barcelona_'92 notes, was simply overwhelmed on such a massive event with the most extensive streaming event in US media history and was ill-equipped in the beginning. Should of thought of the inexperience. NBC is more experienced now with this streaming and knows what it can do to streaming events better, and with less events, interest, and traffic demand in the Winter version, the problems won't be much of an issue with smartphones, tablets, and computers becoming more powerful now than even in London.

I, like Barcelona_'92, expect the biathlon, cross-country skiing events, and maybe preliminary rounds of freestyle skiing, snowboarding, and the sliding events to end up on NBCSN. I'm certain that MSNBC and USA will efficiently help shoulder the burden from NBC Sports Network with the overlapping of some events instead of cramming into US primetime to fill hours and run into the next day's certain Olympic live event TV programming. For the first Saturday, I presume NBC would start on 10-11 am CT and not 1pm, so as not to interfere with NBC Today, which will be at Sochi.

Do find it interesting too that Al Michaels and Dan Patrick are doing NBC Sports Network weekday studio hosting and not at NBC proper. Makes more sense with Patrick since he does have a daily morning show on NBC Sports Network. But I think Michaels would like to be as close to the Olympic hockey action he used to do on ABC when it ran it decades ago without actually calling them; NBC proper won't do much hockey in comparison to NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, and USA combined, save for a few days like the men's gold medal game and maybe the first US men's game on Saturday February 15 against Russia--with all the historic Cold War tie-ins like the 1980 and 1960 Miracles On Ice coming with it to sell drumming up interest for the American TV audience!

NBC's going off on those Sochi 2014 promo blitz now. Perhaps it started with NBC's coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Purina National Kennel Show, and the Thanksgiving Night edition of Sunday Night Football between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens to get viewers freshly alerted with the holidays officially in full swing now. Lots of promos forthcoming. One I can remember has a Shaun White promo and another promo uses Katy Perry's hit "Roar" for a montage of Olympic footage all from Vancouver starring American Sochi hopefuls interspersed with some international athletes like the Swedish women's curling team, Mike Montgomery, and Sidney Crosby celebrating his golden goal. This is the latter.

Turns out I was wrongly premature about the TV2 Norge Sochi 2014 sportscasting team being complete. Former World Cup and Olympic gold medalist Swedish skiier Pernilla Wiberg, who normally and well-respectively analyzes the skiing action for SVT that no longer carries the Swedish Olympic TV broadcasting rights, was happily granted permission from SVT to go cover the alpine skiing with Oyvind Alsaker and Lars Elton Myhre for Sweden's next door Norwegian neighbors TV2 for Sochi. She already does have Norwegian ties: her husband is a Norwegian skiing coach Bodvar Bjelke. Her contemporary Anja Persson is of course doing the same for Viasat and TV3 and TV10.

http://www.tv2.no/sport/ol/pernilla-wiberg-blir-tv-2ekspert-4164512.html

Stian Blipp and Winter X-Games snowboarding gold medalist Andreas Ygre Wiig will be the fun and lighthearted TV2 Norge snowboarding duo for Sochi. Both will be in the mixed zone as media members interviewing the Olympic snowboarders being "the two headed beast in Sochi" with Blipp serving as the people's voice in asking questions, something they both think Norwegian viewers will enjoy.

http://www.tv2.no/sport/ol/stian-blipp-og-andreas-ygre-wiig-blir-tv-2s-snowboardduo-under-ol-4165406.html

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=http://www.tv2.no/sport/ol/stian-blipp-og-andreas-ygre-wiig-blir-tv-2s-snowboardduo-under-ol-4165406.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dstian%2Bblipp%2Bygre%2Btv2%2Bol%2B2014%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D885

Now the TV2 Norge Sochi 2014 sportscasters list is complete:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=http://www.tv2.no/sport/ol/sjekk-hvem-som-gir-deg-ol-paa-tv-2-4148280.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.tv2.no/sport/ol/pernilla-wiberg-blir-tv-2ekspert-4164512.html%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D885

TV2 Sport Channel and TV2 Sumo will show the Norwegian men's curling team aiming for Olympic qualification at the European Championship Thursday against Switzerland in between periods and after of a GET-Liga ice hockey match between Lillehammer and Valarenga!

http://www.tv2.no/sport/ol/hockey-og-curlingfest-paa-tv-2-sportskanalen-i-kveld-4165136.html

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=http://www.tv2.no/sport/ol/hockey-og-curlingfest-paa-tv-2-sportskanalen-i-kveld-4165136.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.tv2.no/sport/ol/hockey-og-curlingfest-paa-tv-2-sportskanalen-i-kveld-4165136.html%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D885

Viasat Sweden and TV10 premiered a daily weekday Olympic studio preview show with guests at 21:00 called OS-Magasinet yesterday with a rotating series of hosts from Carolina Kluft, Goran Zacharisson, Ola Wenstrom, and Nicholas Jihde.

http://www.viasatsport.se/os/senaste-nytt/premiar-os-magasinet-i-tv10/

News report from Canal 22 on America Movil allowing La Red transmitting Sochi 2014

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55KPwMAgdFk

Largely the same article as reported about Network Ten's coverage plans but adds that this mentions a commentary team including former Olympians David Culbert and Steph Hickey, snowboard expert Mitch Tomlinson, freestyle skiing expert Luke Kneller, CEO of Ski and Snowboard Australia Michael Kennedy, TEN Sport journalists Lachie Reid and Rob Waters, and TEN Eyewitness News reporters Danielle Isdale and Mark Howard. Looks as though only Mel Lachman, Steven Bradbury, and Steven Lee will be in Sochi, Russia with many will be based in Melbourne. Why Melbourne? Because that's where the Icehouse, Australia's premier Winter Olympic sports complex facility, is based.

http://sochi2014.olympics.com.au/more/fan-zone/watch-the-games-on-ten

[BTHarner]

NBC announced it would stream the London closing ceremony on the next to last day of the Games. That fits my definition of last minute.

[ofan]

John Montgomery not Mike Montgomery

[Quaker2001]

NBC announced it would stream the London closing ceremony on the next to last day of the Games. That fits my definition of last minute.

They announced it at the last minute so hat it would sink in before the Closing Ceremony. But they undoubtedly made that decision long before the second-to-last day of the games.

[Quaker2001]

I, like Barcelona_'92, expect the biathlon, cross-country skiing events, and maybe preliminary rounds of freestyle skiing, snowboarding, and the sliding events to end up on NBCSN. I'm certain that MSNBC and USA will efficiently help shoulder the burden from NBC Sports Network with the overlapping of some events instead of cramming into US primetime to fill hours and run into the next day's certain Olympic live event TV programming. For the first Saturday, I presume NBC would start on 10-11 am CT and not 1pm, so as not to interfere with NBC Today, which will be at Sochi.

Durban, you never cease to amaze me.. you do realize that the Today Show is only important during the weekend, right? And that the weekend edition is on in the morning and wouldn't be affected by the NBC afternoon show? Once again, that makes no sense.

[Durban Sandshark]

Good deal of the BBC's sports broadcasting priorities next year lies with the World Cup in Brazil and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. But just a couple of hours ago and knowing full well the Winter Olympics is just as big, the good ole BBC announced it plans to broadcast 200 hours with live coverage on BBC2 and BBC2 HD beginning at 7:00 GMT ending with a daily one hour nighttime highlight show at 19:00 hosted by Claire Balding. Hazel Irvine, Claire Balding, and Jonathan Edwards will be joined by notable British Winter Olympians Amy Williams (making her Winter Olympics broadcasting debut), Robin Cousins, Wilf O'Reilly, Graham Bell, Emma Carrick-Anderson and Jackie Lockhart as analysts. Reporters Sir Matthew Pinsent, Jason Mohammad, Nick Hope and Ollie Williams will bring all the news, interviews and behind-the-scenes updates throughout the games. On the Internet side of things, six online streams will present the action from Sochi on the BBC Sport website through computers, tablets, smartphones, and connected TV. BBC Radio 5 Live, also being involved with the Paralympics coverage in March, will also broadcast regular updates with live text commentaries and live coverage of Team GB 2014 on the BBC Sport website, mobile website, and BBC Sport app. Britain may be a middling Winter Olympics nation and don't grant it overall (BBC included) as much priority and publicity as it did with London 2012, but the experience of the BBC presenting London 2012 serves well in improving the coverage henceforth. Was thinking the BBC would cover at around 200 hours from Sochi instead of the minimum 100 hours given its clout, especially what could Team GB's best Winter Olympic team ever.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/winter-olympics/25213838

This BBC press release goes into greater detail with who will go to Sochi for the BBC paired with whom and what sport, what and who from BBC Radio 5 Live will cover, BBC Sport's extensive digital coverage, and extensive Winter Olympic-themed programming on all platforms in the leadup to Sochi like Inspire:The Olympic Journey and Ski Sunday, which will go on an Olympic direction this month. BBC Red plans are still forthcoming.

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/markets/news/article.asp?docKey=600-201312041017M2______EUPR_____fd31000000ca7f9b_3600-1

Starting to notice many nations' broadcasters worldwide are not planning to broadcast the actual first day of Sochi competition that is February 6 and will start with the Opening Ceremony, at least on the television side. Not unexpected, IMO. We know NBC kicks off their coverage on that day, and we can expect CBC/Radio-Canada Television in Canada, Viasat/TV3 in Sweden, TV 2 in Norway, and the host Russian Olympic broadcasters of Channel One, Rossiya 2, and NTV + to start likewise then too. The Internet streaming will obviously cover the first day on many websites for sure for many broadcasters Not even the BBC and ARD/ZDF are going on February 6 on TV. Perhaps they, like many broadcasters at the Summer Olympics after the men's and women's soccer matches from the first two days before the Opening Ceremony, prefer to start with the Opening Ceremony as the official start. Once we start seeing the Olympic TV broadcasting schedules from around the world we'll get a clearer picture of who will start televising on February 6 and who won't. Don't think many worldwide will, speculation-wise.

[breathesgelatin]

As one of the people who doesn't subscribe to any paid television service, but watches over the airwaves, it's frustrating not being able to stream... ah well.

[JMarkSnow2012]

yes, I know there's an aspect of this where you need to have a pay TV subscription (which I believe you don't) to access the online coverage.

The official word is "The vast majority of live streaming will only be available to authenticated cable, satellite or telco customers". The catch in 2012 was that it wasn't just any old c/s/t subscription- the package had to include CNBC and MSNBC, which took some basic cable customers by surprise.

[rok]

Will Eurosport show Sochi Games?