US media company NBCUniversal has unveiled record coverage plans for the 2016 summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
NBCU will take advantage of the favourable time difference between the US and Brazil to show 6,755 hours of action from Rio 2016. The previous record was 5,535 hours from the 2012 summer Games in London, England.
Rio is just one hour ahead of the Eastern time zone in the US, with the last summer Olympics offering such a favourable time slot being the 1996 Games, which were held in the US city of Atlanta.
The NBC network will broadcast 260.5 hours of Olympic programming, including the opening and closing ceremonies, athletics, swimming and gymnastics. In total, NBCU will offer 2,084 hours of linear television programming across 11 platforms in the US, including two specialty channels provided to distribution partners, one each for basketball and football.
NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app will live stream 4,500 hours of Rio 2016 coverage marking the third consecutive Olympics in which NBCU has streamed every event live. NBC also intends to distribute 4K Ultra HD content on a one-day delay and virtual reality programming.
The 2016 summer Olympic Games will take place from August 5-21. In May 2014, NBCU extended its media rights deal for the Olympic Games through to 2032 in a deal that the International Olympic Committee said would secure the long-term financial security of the Olympic Movement.
NBCU acquired rights across all media platforms, including free-to-air television, subscription television, internet and mobile. The agreement, from 2021 to 2032, was valued at $7.65bn (€6.94bn), plus an additional $100m signing bonus which the IOC said would be used for the “promotion of Olympism and the Olympic values” between 2015 and 2020.