Media outlets proved to be one of the most prominent Olympic stakeholders during the Summer Olympics. The most notable media outlet was NBC for their continued media coverage of the Summer Games in London. NBC has held the American broadcasting rights of the Summer Olympics since 1988. As a result of the successful partership between NBC and the Olympic games, they have extended their deal through the year 2020 for about $ 4.4 billion dollars. Even more surprising is that NBC still managed to break even. NBCUniversal payed close to $1.18 billion dollars to the IOC for the exclusive television rights, which included the ability to broadcast all of the events on several different channels (James, 2012). These included NBC, MSNBC, the NBC Sports Network and online content. One of the primary controversies surrounding NBC was their move to delay the broadcats of many high profile sports events such as basketball until hours after the events ended. Many people were upset and irritated that the results of the events were already being announced online or on other networks (Braconnier, 2012). They felt that it defeated the purpose of actually tuning in to watch the events if they already know the outcome. Social media has contributed greatly to this problem since people can get updates on their phones (Hiestand, 2012). Several companies however used NBC’s broadcasting rights as an opportunity to promote their product. There are many mutual benefits between the companies looking to advertise to a wide audience and to NBC for sustaining relationships with these companies in order to gain exposure.
Sources:
James, M. (2012, August 1). Nbc’s olympics coverage expected to be close to ‘break-even’. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/01/entertainment/la-et-ct-nbcs-olympics-coverage-expected-to-be-close-to-breakeven-20120801
Braconnier, D. (2012, August 13). Nbc’s olympic coverage was a disaster once again: Fan’s perspective. Retrieved from http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nbc-olympic-coverage-disaster-once-again-fan-perspective-114300026–oly.html
Hiestand, M. (2012,
July 29). Usa toda’ys tv guru breaks down saturda’ys olympics coverage. USA
TODAY. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/story/2012-07-28/live-blog-july-28-london-olympics/56564684/1
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