NBC’s prime-time coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, will air live across the United States, including on the West Coast, a first since the Games became a major television attraction in the late 1960s.
The move to coast-to-coast live coverage — which NBC Sports is announcing Tuesday — is an acknowledgement that holding back results or highlights for any part of the audience is no longer a viable option as viewers have instant access to information immediately through online platforms and digital devices.
Jim Bell, president, production and programming for NBC Olympics, told the Los Angeles Times that making the Games live coast-to-coast is a way to address evolving viewer habits while “reasserting” television’s status as the preeminent medium for coverage.
“We’re streaming it live, and social media has become so ubiquitous that it’s hard to ignore even for people who are trying to avoid it,” Bell said. “It just seemed like it was the right time to take this step.”
Since social media reached critical mass, Olympic TV viewers have frequently groused about seeing events on delay. In response, the network has loaded as much live coverage as possible into the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m., when the most TV viewers are available to watch.
