NBC is gearing up for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London by dropping Microsoft’s Silverlight HD video player for Google’s globally popular YouTube.
The television network owns the digital rights to the Olympics in the United States until 2020 and has preferred Silverlight for showcasing previous games online, such as the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Regarding YouTube’s involvement in the upcoming Games, NBC Sports’ website previously noted:
We are going to make Olympic history. With YouTube as our official video-on-demand partner, NBCOlympics.com will be the exclusive online destination for all in-venue video. We plan to deliver the most extensive 2012 Olympics content to viewers, including—for the first time ever—ALL events streamed live. That’s right, you’ll be able to watch up to 3,000 hours of live streaming covering all 302 Gold Medals and every event inbetween.
We’ll also include replays of Web-exclusive events, all television broadcasts, interviews with the athletes and exclusive daily segments about London 2012. Live streams will be available across our mobile platforms, providing an extraordinary 360-degree coverage of The Games.
However, the page is no longer live after the network discovered it published inaccurate facts. NBC subsequently issued a statement to The Next Web clarifying YouTube and NBC are only collaborating for the Olympics and not all events will stream live. The broadcast company did not reveal any of its programming details, including information on streaming and rights shared across the world.
More information is available below.
“YouTube is not our official video-on-demand partner. They are simply providing the technology behind our NBCOlympics.com video player,” clarified NBC. “Not all events will be streamed live. For the first time in the U.S., all events will be presented live on at least one NBC platform (either broadcast, cable or digital).”
It is assumed YouTube will not livestream on YouTube.com itself, because NBC will most likely direct users to its own website for pageviews. Although, YouTube’s backbone will definitely serve as the technology platform. It is also unknown how the limited union will affect advertising between the two firms.
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