NEW YORK — The days of “plausibly live” Olympics coverage on NBC are coming to an end.
The network aired some of the new features planned for coverage of the Summer Olympics in Paris starting July 26 — including artificial intelligence-generated personalized highlights packages featuring the voice of Al Michaels and a star from Steven Spielberg — but none of them came to fruition. equalized. the radical change in attitude towards the way the Games are presented.
For years, NBC jealously guarded its primetime Olympics broadcasts regardless of time zone, aggravating fans being unable to watch major events if they happened live earlier in the day. Attempts to essentially pretend the events were being seen live added to the frustration.
This year, NBC said Wednesday that Mike Tirico will host two daily Olympics shows, one that coincides with prime time in Paris (2 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET) and featuring live competition in major sports like swimming, gymnastics and athletics. & field. The other, during prime time in the US, while Paris sleeps, will be a curated showing of the day’s best action.
Meanwhile, the network promised that its affiliate streaming service Peacock would show all Olympic competitions live.
“We gave the audience choice, which I believe the consumer wants,” said Molly Solomon, executive producer of the NBC Olympics. “We know how popular live sports are, so holding something back doesn’t make sense in this new media landscape.”
That means reconfiguring the way NBC structures its primetime broadcast in the United States, always the biggest draw for viewers. NBC won’t just show competitions, but will use the extra time to tell viewers more about why things happened the way they did and give a behind-the-scenes look, she said.
Producers are aware that many viewers arrive at late broadcasts already knowing who won some of the events, while others do not and will want to be surprised.
“We never want to ruin the suspense,” Solomon said. “But it’s a tightrope act.”
More heavily than in the past, NBC will focus on athletes’ personality profiles and feature celebrities in coverage; Snoop Dogg, for example, is coming to Paris at NBC’s expense. Solomon said he may make use of features being planned for Peacock, such as a highlights package narrated by Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson.
“It will be very different from the primetime shows you have seen in the past,” she said.
It will also require some business adjustments, with NBC selling advertising packages that include inventory across both “primetime” broadcasts, said Mark Lazarus, president of NBC Universal Media Group. The network is also preparing to emphasize viewership counts across its platform in a way that deflects attention from likely late-night ratings declines compared to previous years.
Lazarus also acknowledged that NBC did a poor job with its Olympics offerings on Peacock four years ago, essentially overpromising and underdelivering, and consumers responded with “the big digital middle finger.”
He promised dramatic improvements for Peacock this summer.
The streamer is also using AI to allow fans to create personalized highlights packages, choosing in advance a few favorite sports and the type of action they would like to see. The AI will then deliver these specific highlights, narrated by an AI-generated model of Michaels’ voice – eerily realistic during a demonstration given on Wednesday.
NBC estimates it will create about 7 million highlights package variations through the new service.
In addition to Snoop Dogg, NBC is bringing celebrities like Kelly Clarkson, Peyton Manning and Jimmy Fallon into its coverage. It was announced Wednesday that “Saturday Night Live” actor Colin Jost will help cover Tahiti surfing. And to emphasize the narrative — NBC is billing the Olympics as a reality show, comedy and drama all in one — Spielberg will narrate “Land of Stories,” a short film that will be shown before the Olympics opening ceremonies.
___
David Bauder writes about media for the Associated Press. Follow him on http://twitter.com/dbauder.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
