NBC's 2018 Winter Olympics Coverage Will No Longer Include Dreaded Tape-Delay
NBCUniversal will announce on Tuesday that it will air more than 2,400 hours of coverage of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games from, PyeongChang, South Korea, the most ever for a Winter Olympics. Of particular importance for Olympic viewers: NBC will air live coverage of the PyeongChang Games across all time zones in primetime. No longer will the coverage be tape-delayed in non-Eastern Time zones, a traditional criticism of NBC's coverage. The 2,400-plus hours of coverage nearly equals the Winter Games coverage of Sochi (1,600+ hours) and Vancouver (835 hours) combined.
The coverage across NBC, NBCSN, CNBC, USA Network, NBCOlympics.com, and the NBC Sports app begins Feb. 7 at 11 p.m. ET on NBCSN, with coverage of mixed doubles curling. NBC's primetime coverage starts the next day at 8:00 p.m. ET, with live figure skating, qualifying in the men's and women's moguls competitions, and qualifying in men's ski jumping. NBC will air the Opening Ceremony on Friday Feb. 9 in primetime.
The network breakdown is as followed:
NBC (176 hours)
NBC's schedule is divided into three day parts – daytime, primetime and primetime plus. Primetime begins each night at 8 p.m. ET, except for Sundays (7 p.m. ET) and will be highlighted by live coverage of alpine skiing, figure skating, snowboard/freestyle skiing, and short track. Eleven of 18 nights of primetime will feature live alpine skiing (likely featuring Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn) and all alpine skiing will air live either in primetime or primetime plus on NBC. Figure skating will be prominently featured during NBC's primetime coverage, airing on 12 of 18 nights.
NBC's Olympic daytime coverage will air from 3-5 p.m. ET on weekdays, and 3-6 p.m. ET on weekends across all time zones.
New to this Winter Olympics is NBC's late-night primetime plus window. Olympic coverage will air live across all time zones every night following primetime and local news. Primetime plus will feature many of the same events airing in primetime.
NBCSN (369 hours)
The cable network will air live primetime coverage of a Winter Olympics for the first time, as well as 10 days of 24-hour programming. Gold medal finals on NBCSN include bobsled, hockey, snowboarding, short track and luge.
CNBC (46 hours)
CNBC will air 46 hours of coverage, highlighted by evening curling telecasts.
USA Network (40.5 hours)
USA Network will air 40.5 hours of hockey and curling coverage throughout the Games, the majority of which will be shown live.
NBCOlympics.com/NBC Sports app (1,800+)
PyeongChang will be the first Winter Games to offer live streaming of the NBC broadcast network, including primetime and primetime-plus programming. NBC said its digital coverage will include live streaming of all competition on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app across desktops, mobile devices, tablets, connected TVs for authenticated users, and TV simul-stream coverage of five television networks. Viewers will also have access to three digital-only programs, live streams of practices, and a news desk regularly publishing Olympic updates throughout each day.
Olympic Channel Coverage
If your cable system gets the "Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA," the channel will air 20 hours of news and highlights provided daily by Olympic Broadcasting Services, live Olympic medal ceremony coverage from the PyeongChang Medal Plaza, and a daily studio show featuring Jimmy Roberts.
