US media group NBCUniversal set new internet streaming audience records during its coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
According to the Multichannel News website, NBCU attracted 159.3 million video streams – 64.4 million of which were live – for London 2012 coverage in comparison with 75.5 million for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. A total of 20.4 million hours of video content was streamed, compared to 9.9 million during Beijing 2008.
NBCU broke new ground with its coverage of London 2012 by streaming every competition live, as well as the closing ceremony, via its NBCOlympics.com website.
The NBC Olympics Live Extra app also streamed every athletic competition live and provided multiple concurrent streams for select sports, while the NBC Olympics app offered short-form highlights.
Sixty-three per cent of the live steams were accessed via the website, with the remaining 37 per cent being accessed via the Live Extra app.
Seventy per cent of the total video streams were accessed via the website, with the remaining 30 per cent accessed through the Live Extra and NBC Olympics apps.