Predictably, NBC Universal's first weekend of summer Olympics coverage from China - including its live TV and affiliate airings on channels such as MSNBC, online video streaming and other Internet offerings - reportedly have set the peacock network on a pace to become history's most watched games.
Also predictably, not everyone is happy with the coverage.
Despite concerns in the weeks leading up to the games that NBC's restrictions on who could show what and how - following the network's $900 million investment for the rights to broadcast the Beijing Olympics - would be more restrictive than the communist host nation's own rules, reports are emerging that Saturday night's 24.1 million average viewers bested Athens by nearly 4.5 million viewers.
The figures come as NBC, Olympics organizers, government officials and multimedia outlets - backed by technologies that allow for faster and higher quality video streaming - debate what's fair and best in delivering the games to viewers' TV's, computers, cell phones and other mobile devices.
As Jill Geer, USA Track & Field's director of communications, reportedly told the Sports Business Journal: "This is the first Olympic trials where new media has been relevant. Everybody's trying to figure it out."
Some hi-tech insiders are flatly wowed by the reach of NBC's ambition.
As Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports, the 3,600 combined hours of coverage from the network - including 1,400 hours on TV and 2,200 hours of streaming online - will form the equivalent of 150 days' worth of round-the-clock games.
Yet the live coverage on the Internet - mostly for lower-profile sports such as handball and archery - won't show anything live that NBC intends to broadcast later on its TV network, where millions of dollars in advertising are at stake.
The coverage "rules" have rubbed some the wrong way.
One blogger, Chris Matyszczyk, said he was disappointed with the video feed from NBC online and called the network's manipulation of what's been coming out of Beijing "censorship."
"Here's what is strange about NBC's online coverage: I have no idea what I am watching," Matyszczyk writes. "Yes, I have clicked on the commentary, which takes the form of a live blog stream - except that the writer is endearingly honest about his predicament."
Some media outlets, including The New York Times, appear to have found effective ways to bring the Olympics home to viewers and even adding something more to their coverage.
For example, look at the venerable newspaper's multimedia piece on Michael Phelps' first gold medal win in the 400 meter individual medley, here, with graphics bringing to life the still photographs and narrative of a writer. Again, the Times does an outstanding job with last night's incredible win for a U.S. foursome that brought home gold in the 400 meter freestyle relay, thanks to anchorman Jason Lezak.
NBC has long touted its online coverage of the Olympics as "free," yet this writer's attempt to access highlight clips of the games was thwarted after he entered information into a form about his ZIP code and TV service provider.
Certainly gathering that kind of information - about who is watching the Olympics and which events, from where, on what form of media - will serve NBC and others well.
As The New York Times has already reported, NBC is obsessively tracking its Olympics audience across different media platforms.
"The exhaustive coverage of the Summer Olympics from Beijing next month - 3,600 hours on television and online - presents NBC Universal with a problem: how to give advertisers a portrait of viewership on seven networks, the Internet (both computers and cellphones) and video-on-demand downloads," Richard Sandomir writes for the paper.
Michael Dinan is a TMCNet Editor. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
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