Mark your calendar for Mediaweek, October 29-30 in New York City. We’ll unpack the biggest shifts shaping the future of media—from tv to retail media to tech—and how marketers can prep to stay ahead. Register with early-bird rates before sale ends!
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics have finally arrived after a year’s delay, and thanks to Peacock and the rapidly expanding connected TV space, there are more ways to watch the Games than ever before.
NBCUniversal will offer 5,500 hours of streaming coverage via its NBC Sports apps and upstart streamer Peacock, which will factor into its Olympics schedule for the first time and is available on all major connected TV platforms.
To make its coverage as accessible as possible, NBCUniversal partnered with multiple platforms to create dedicated Olympic dashboards, including Comcast’s Xfinity, Cox, Hulu, Dish, Verizon Fios, AT&T U-Verse, DirecTV, NCTC, Altice, YouTube TV, Google TV, Bing, Apple TV+ and Roku.
“Our goal here is to make sure that these are programming gateways, like Apple TV and Roku, which have massive reach, so that there is an opportunity for the consumer when they hit that front door to be able to find what it is within the Olympics’ vast programming offering—athletes, sports, what networks are where—to find it there,” Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics and business for NBC Sports Group, told Adweek.
“We know that if we can lead them to water, get them to the sports or the athletes that they’re most interested in, they’re going to watch more,” Zenkel said. “That’s the goal, and I’d say the enthusiasm and interest is fantastic. There’s work that’s required for them to build out these dashboards, and the partnerships have been great.”
The pandemic postponement gave NBCU’s partners an opportunity to think beyond where they were a year ago. “I can’t wait to see what it ultimately yields, but it feels like full-on consumption,” Zenkel said.
Roku’s first Olympics hub
Roku, the biggest connected TV player, and NBCUniversal have partnered for the first time to create an Olympics hub, where Roku users can access NBCUniversal’s Tokyo streaming coverage through Aug. 8.
“As this is Peacock’s first Olympics, we saw a great opportunity to bring the Games to life across the Roku platform,” said Maggie McLean Suniewick, president of NBCUniversal digital enterprises, in a statement. “This experience on Roku makes NBC Olympics content unmissable for streamers.”
Roku users will have a dedicated 2020 Tokyo Olympics pod on the left-side menu of the home screen, as well as a countdown clock to track the time remaining until the opening ceremony.
Once the Games kick off, the countdown clock will be replaced with a medal tracker. Users will be able to watch the events live through NBC Sports, or stream free daily highlights and condensed replays through Peacock.
“Streaming has fundamentally changed the way we come together for news, sports and entertainment today, and nothing combines these moments together better and on a bigger scale than the Olympics,” said Tedd Cittadine, vp of content partnerships for Roku, in a statement. “As the No. 1 TV streaming platform in America, we’re thrilled to be partnering with NBCUniversal to develop a unique, dedicated destination for streamers to experience all of the excitement of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.”
Peacock first landed on the Roku platform last September, and only arrived on Amazon Fire TV last month, just in time for the Olympics kickoff.
Amazon Fire TV’s dedicated landing page
On Thursday, Amazon Fire TV will launch an immersive experience straight from the Fire TV home screen: a dedicated landing page for all the ways to watch every event on Fire TV, with or without cable.
Throughout all 17 days of the Games, fans will be able to access a new live TV and on-demand row powered by NBC Sports, as well as a new row of Peacock Originals.
“It’ll help orient the customer and get them into the content, but then separately it’s also going to have UI features like a row of effectively live content that gets refreshed every five minutes,” Charlotte Maines, director of Fire TV advertising, monetization and engagement, told Adweek.
Amazon Fire TV has also partnered with Red Bull for a new collection of Red Bull TV original documentaries that profile top athletes as they train for one more year during Covid-19 for the Olympics. Additionally, Fire TV also launched a curated row of sports-themed TV shows and movies.
“We have an official partnership with Red Bull, where they’ve created a bunch of really unique cool content for the Olympics, some of which we offer exclusively,” Maines said. “It’s really cool and that’s something that you can only watch on Fire TV. Red Bull has some other documentaries and things they’ve done, and so that will all be easily linkable from that page as well.”
Vizio’s Summer of Sports
Vizio, meanwhile, is launching a Summer of Sports approach on its SmartCast platform that works to drive viewers to Peacock, and will also offer additional sports programming and sports-themed content on the home screen. Users can expect to see a curated carousel with tiles showcasing live sports, replays, historical Games moments, sports news, and themed documentaries, movies and shows. Audiences will also see a hero/discover placement in rotation on the SmartCast home screen that highlights content.
“There will be a huge amount of programming driving viewership towards the Olympic Games,” Adam Bergman, vice president of national ad sales, told Adweek. “It is a huge area of interest for Vizio customers, as frankly customers on every single platform. There absolutely will be a major initiative where we will make it extremely easy for customers to access and find the sports and programs that they want.”
All of these connected TV partnerships are essential in helping NBCUniversal meet the ratings guarantees made to Tokyo Olympics advertisers using its Total Audience Delivery metric, which includes total viewers on all linear, digital, streaming and social platforms. Last month, NBCU said it has surpassed the $1.2 billion in ad revenue that it generated during the 2016 Rio Olympics.
