Olympics reports ‘record-breaking media coverage’

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) hailed “record-breaking media coverage” and “unprecedented levels of engagement” at this summer’s Rio Games.

The IOC said that there was nearly 350,000 total hours of Olympics coverage this year, up from less than 200,000 hours for London 2012, with more than 500 TV channels and 250 digital platforms carrying the action.

Digitally there was 218,000 hours of coverage, which the Olympics body said was more than ever – “nearly double TV and 2.5 times more than London 2012”.

More than 9 million hours of content streamed on the Olympic Video Player, with up to 1 million daily unique viewers for live streaming and on-demand video.

There was also “record global engagement” on the IOC’s Olympic.org website with more than 26 million visits – more than double compared to London 2012.

Other innovations flagged by Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) included the availability of virtual reality and 8K Super High Vision for the first time.

Separately NBC claimed that the Rio Olympics was the “most successful media event in history” with an average audience delivery of 27.5 million viewers – the “second-highest primetime audience for an non-US summer games.”

NBC said its Olympics’ digital coverage also set event records with 3.3 billion total streaming minutes, 2.71 billion live streaming minutes and 100 million unique users.

“Our planning, production and presentation of the Rio Games, across broadcast on NBC, our many cable outlets, our streaming on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app and our massive social media outreach is the most impressive undertaking I’ve seen in the media world,” claimed NBC Sports Group chairman, Mark Lazarus.

Similarly, the BBC said that its coverage of the Olympics Games in Rio was “the biggest ever success for BBC Sport’s digital service,” reaching 102.3 million unique global browsers – with 68.3 million coming from the UK.

The biggest single day for traffic to BBC Sport’s digital service was Super Sunday, with 19 million compared with 10.4 million set in 2012. The experimental BBC Sport 360 service, which provided live and on-demand content in 360-degree video for the first time, also drew over 1 million views across all platforms.

“Building on the legacy of London 2012 and the phenomenal success of the first digital Olympic Games, BBC Sport’s digital service has provided coverage on an unprecedented scale during Rio 2016,” said BBC Sport’s head of digital and radio, Ben Gallop.