The Olympics in Prime Time

Filed in archive General on August 18, 2008

© Andy in Beijing

Here in the US we didn't get to see the Olympics opening ceremony until later in the evening. Why didn't NBC play the Olympics opening ceremony live? The simple answer is viewers. By waiting to play the opening ceremony until prime time they were able to get a lot more viewers, and that means more advertising money in their pocket.

The Web helped too. Rory Cellan-Jones of BBC News had this to say, "All the leaks on the web and the chatter in the blogs about the spectacular show may even have helped boost the audience."

We were all trying to find photos and video of the opening ceremony all day. This made us on the edge of our seats when we finally got to see the whole thing. Hence, more viewers. What this means to TV is that if you can get your advertising and previews on the Net, you're going to do better when your show finally goes live.

What do you think of NBC's choice to wait to show US citizens the olympic opening ceremony?