Streaming Video is NBC’s ‘Fountain of Youth’ for Winter Olympics

Young people are able to watch events on apps like Snapchat.

Rebecca Lowe with Gold Medalist Red Gerard on February 11, 2018. (Paul Drinkwater/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
Rebecca Lowe with Gold Medalist Red Gerard on February 11, 2018. (Paul Drinkwater/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

For the first time, NBC is offering live streaming coverage of the Winter Olympics on a platform other than its own apps. People can watching streaming video on popular apps like Snapchat. Broadcast and cable television are still the main destinations for Olympic audiences. The vast majority of the $900 million advertisers are spending to reach viewers watching the Games is going to commercials that air on NBC and its cable networks. But the average primetime audience of around 23 million is down 6 percent from 2014, which reflect the overall downward trend of broadcast and cable TV viewing. NBC has $12 billion invested in TV, mobile and internet streaming rights to the Games through 2032. They need younger people who spend less time watching traditional TV to develop new Olympic viewing habits. So they turned digital. The digital audience can be significant. Shaun White’s historic snowboarding run was watched by 445,000 people who streamed it on an internet device.

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