Olympic Viewers Have Multiple Options for Live Streaming Events from London

The BBC has thrown its hat into the live streaming ring for the London Olympics alongside NBC Sports. Calling the 2012 events “the first digital Olympics,” the BBC will carry as many as 24 live streams of the Summer Games to PCs, mobile devices and smart TVs. The BBC will also launch a free Olympics app for iOS and Android (News - Alert) devices.

“We have reinvented the experience of watching big events live,” Phil Fearnley, general manager BBC News & Knowledge, told Reuters (News - Alert). “Audiences will never miss a moment and will get total control over what they watch.”

The 24 live streams will include as many as 2,500 hours of broadcasting. However, due to rights restrictions, the BBC coverage will only be available overseas. In the U.K., satellite company BSkyB and cable provider Virgin Media (News - Alert) will take all of the live feeds from the BBC. Additionally, the BBC will offer profiles of every competing athlete as well as links to the Twitter feeds of some of the more popular athletes.

NBC Sports also plans to live stream every Olympic event from London, including the awarding of ever medal. This will add up to over 3,500 hours of coverage. 

However, NBC will hold off on archiving some of the more profitable events so that it can run the events in prime time. Since NBC has paid $14.4 billion for broadcast rights to the games, the company has to recover the money through prime-time advertising.

While Yahoo won’t be live streaming events, they do plan to broadcast from the games, and they plan to air five times the quantity of coverage that they aired during the 2010 Olympics. During the 2010 games, Yahoo saw nearly double the page views of NBCSports.com. The company’s 2012 Olympics coverage will be aired in dozens of languages.

Even though millions of tickets were made available for the London Games, the demand for tickets has far exceeded supply, which will drive many disappointed fans toward live streaming options.

In past years, the Games were also a significant driver for television sales. However, with the changes in the way that people consume content, sales are expected to grow across the whole spectrum of digital devices.