Old Games Bring New Consumption Habits
A few weeks ago my good friend Greg wrote about NBC’s plans to broadcast virtually the entire 2008 Summer Olympics. His gripe – no one wants to watch each and every event, most of which are sports that seem to only exist during Olympics season. Instead, consumers just want to see the crème de la crop – those truly special moments in sports history (think 400m relay).
I couldn’t agree with Greg more, but apparently we’re alone.
An estimated 107 million people tuned in to experience at least a few minutes of the Olympics on Sunday (whoa!), 95 percent of whom watched the games on TV.
Impressive as that number may be, the real story here is how the other 5 percent accessed NBC’s video content.
Greg recommended that NBC leverage interactivity and new media to bring this year’s games into the modern day.
While I wouldn’t go as far as to say NBC has pulled out all the tricks (still don’t see much Web 2.0 gadgetry available on NBC’s dedicated Olympics site), they’ve accomplished something amazing: driven millions of people to give new consumption methods, like mobile video, a shot.
Although the number of people accessing Olympic content over mobile devices is relatively small compared to via TV — 494,506 on Sunday – roughly half of these folks have never before accessed video on their phones.
NBC is using the Olympics as a research lab of sorts to track the adoption of new media technology, making the content available online, through video on demand and via cell phones, in addition to traditional TV.
My hope is that NBC’s research reveals what Greg suggested: consumers are ready for interactive experiences that unleash the true potential of broadband. And just halfway through this year’s games it’s looking good.