For many NBC-affiliated television stations and perhaps its owned stations, along with those aligned with the Spanish-language Telemundo network, combating those ever-present “macroeconomic headwinds” may involve attracting viewers and advertisers alike to the thousands of hours of coverage devoted to the upcoming Olympic Games Paris 2024.
Yet, NBCUniversal is ready to launch a new platform on a popular streaming aggregation service to help users “easily access and explore” the action from Paris by routing them to its own Peacock OTT app.
The NBC Olympic Zone on Roku allows viewers to quickly find — and stream — the NBC prime-time show and individual sports, highlights, and replays.
While some may argue that this is designed to appeal to cord-cutters and cord-nevers who naturally go to a Roku or fire stick as their initial point of access for TV viewing, it also demonstrates how the over-the-air broadcast TV channel airing the Paris games is a diminished destination in today’s streaming-happy environment.
But, wait … is the “NBC Olympic Zone on Roku” really an attempt to drive viewers away from over-the-air television channels or a ploy to grow Peacock’s paid subscriber rolls?
“Fans using Roku can quickly get to Olympics events on Peacock with a subscription, and watch more than 5,000 hours of live events and all NBC programming, browse through curated content rows of live and upcoming programming, discover events by sport type, click through event recaps, and so much more,” a spokesperson shared.
As such, viewing this OTT content will require one to open their pocketbooks.
With NBCUniversal’s Upfront event in just two weeks, some marketers may be pleased with the availability of Olympics coverage on the popular streaming platform. That said, when “tentpole” content is no longer the unique domain of broadcast TV, how this may impact the affiliate-to-network relationship may have ripple effects.
As NBCU sees it, Peacock is simply an additional platform available to those who crave Olympics coverage, noting that the NBC broadcast network and Peacock will each serve as the company’s primary platforms for Olympic Games Paris 2024, scheduled for July 26 through August 11.
