NBC will live stream the Winter Olympics in VR

BI Intelligence

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NBC will air over 50 hours of live VR coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics to US pay-TV subscribers, Variety reports.

The coverage will include the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as sports including snowboarding, figure skating, curling, and ice hockey. NBC’s digital coverage marks the first time any Winter Olympics will be available in VR. The content will be accessible to pay-TV subscribers through the NBC Sports VR app.

By making the content available in VR, NBC looks to appeal to a wider audience and buck the trend of declining Olympics viewership. The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics averaged 21.4 million prime-time viewers, down 12% from the 2010 Vancouver Games.

Moreover, prime-time viewership for the 18-49 year-old age group at the 2016 Olympic Games was 25% lower compared with the Olympics four years earlier, according to Bloomberg. NBC hopes to hedge against future viewership declines by increasing its presence on VR, which is becoming more prevalent among consumers — global VR headset shipments reached an all-time high in Q3 2017, with shipments topping 1 million for the first time ever in the quarter, according to Canalys.

However, the total installed base of VR headsets is relatively small, which could limit the effect of NBC’s VR broadcasts on Winter Olympics viewership. The global installed base of VR headsets stood at 18 million in 2016, according to IHS Markit. And S&P Global predicted 90 million households would pay for cable or satellite TV in 2017, per Recode.

Regardless, the move to broadcast the Winter Olympics in VR still allows NBC to continue to enhance its digital presence and adjust to the broader trend of viewers vying for digital alternatives in place of linear TV.

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