I can say in all honestly that I’ve waited literally decades for this moment. For the first time ever, Olympics coverage in the US finally makes sense. No need to juggle a dozen channels and time zone differences whilst awaiting broadcasters holding back content for prime time.
I ended up a Peacock subscriber as my wife and daughter are Swifties. That annual plan investment is paying dividends this month with NBC’s stellar Peacock presentation of the Olympics. Yeah, we’ve had streaming hubs before. But nothing like this. Multiple live feeds, including multiview split-screen and “Gold Zone“, along with tons of sport-categorized replays. It’s well organized and fairly comprehensive, quite the breath of fresh air. Further, NBC Sports is frequently publishing bite-sized highlights on their YouTube channel. Not only am I enjoying the content, I’ve been firing off Simone Biles highlight reels to my elderly mother, who currently struggles navigating her cable box.
Of course, the Olympics has supersized business implications. So finally pulling this all together just makes sense. And, although Amazon is losing money, NBC and even Roku could be raking it in with the current approach. From the streaming company’s quarterly call Thursday, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha:
we’re working so closely with Peacock and NBC to be the lead-in to the Olympics. And it’s clearly working. I keep getting text from folks in France that say we’re on fire and we’re helping drive their engagement. So what our Olympics partnership with them was and it was a series of custom integrations, showed our ability to innovate and are also ability to build really bespoke ad-supported experience around tentpole events.
While much of the Roku presentation is essentially a Peacock upsell, Roku does offer an attractive and fun medal tracker. But, irrespective of who’s paying who, I can say I’ve enjoyed this summer Olympics as none other. Probably doesn’t hurt that I visited Paris last month, during preparations, and had fun watching the US Team coincidentally riding the same Seine riverboat we toured from.
As a TiVo holdout, I’m disappointed that there’s not a way to stream Peacock on my Bolt.
I’ve been mostly happy with the Peacock streaming using a web browser on my computer connected to a 4k tv. So far I’ve been focused on swimming with some other shows keeping me on the couch.
I’ve been watching shows as replay because I’m on US west coast and enjoy watching the morning sessions before the afternoon sessions. The one problem I have is that there doesn’t seem to be an indicator of which episodes I’ve already watched.
I love the Gold Zone on Peacock! No more setting up recordings and we get Scott Hansen from Red Zone. I signed up for Peacock during the Winter Olympics 2 years ago but this time the coverage is great. I watch Gold Zone most of the time but use the hubs, too.
William, maybe surprisingly, Peacock’s best experience is TV app vs mobile app and web. Here’s the feature breakdown: https://fave.co/3SDbfjc
The last winter Olympics on Peacock were great, too. Every sport, every event, whenever you want. Literally what we were promised from interactive tv since 1985 that never came to fruition. This year’s additions of the multiple live streams and event summaries is just icing on the cake. How could an evil megacorp actually produce something good and not let tons of dumb decisions get in the way?
I’m not into the Summer Olympics, so I’ll have to wait for the next Winter games., But this article loses me.
First, “live feeds” sound about as useless as the numerous and poorly named “live channels” offered by streaming devices. That just sounds like cable in a different form. What I would want is to pick a sporting event (e.g. 100 meter dash) and then choose to be able to stream from numerous runs of that event. Maybe that’s the “numerous sport-categorized replays????”
Second, there’s no attempt to describe exactly what the “Gold Zone” is. But it doesn’t matter much because all I want is the first item–on demand streaming of past events.
What I have noticed is that the NBC Nightly News makes no attempt whatsoever to warn about spoilers, which I view as another bad sign for the owners of local broadcast stations. Not only do they cover many of the events that will be shown that night on broadcast, but they give highlights at the beginning of their broadcast.
Second, the article doesn’t
Given current ad rates, in light of competing priorities like work and family, this blog gets minimal attention and I post during the occasional coffee break. So, for additional detail or deeper insight, you should look elsewhere. But, hopefully the gist is clear: As I said on Twitter, “NBC is crushing it with their Peacock Olympics coverage and flooding the zone, no longer fearing cord cutters, time zones, prime time, etc.”
Some live feeds are simulcasts of broadcast (NBC) and cable programming (USA). Gold Zone is similar to Red Zone in that the producers jump around to the most exciting live events/moments. Yes, the replays are categorized by specific sports, including video of heats and finals. Also, you can visit NBC Sports on YouTube yourself, without a Peacock or YouTube account, to check out the replays and compilations from various sports. It’s bite-sized, but sometimes that’s all you need. Can’t help with spoilers, as I want the real-time coverage and info, which NBC is providing this year.
Thanks. I wasn’t looking for help with spoilers, since I’m not watching. Just commenting on yet another way the networks no longer give a crap about their local affiliates. If I owned a local affiliate, I’d be selling (which I believe Sinclair may be doing–lightening up their TV holdings).
And thanks for the additional description of Gold Zone, although I’d point out that saying it’s similar to “Red Zone” didn’t really help. ;-) But if it’s moving around to what they consider the most exciting events, again that sounds like live TV. Having used a DVR for some 20 years, I really don’t do anything that is so-called “live.”