This year, Olympics won’t wait for primetime

For Olympic fans, the days of the primetime surprise may be over,
NBC will have a different approach for the games (July 26 to Aug. 11) in Paris: Every major event (including gymnastics, with Siimone Biles shown here) will be live in the daytime, then repackaged for night.
That’s a big change from the days when it was easy to keep secrets. Major events – including, in the winter, U.S-Russia hockey and Kerrigan-Harding skating – could be delayed for hours, then delivered to surprised viewers at night.
Not any more. “The network is going to be live (in the daytime), no holding back,” Molly Solomon, president of NBC’s Olympics coverage, told the Television Critics Association. At night, the same events will be in “a curated presentation – the best performances of the day, distilled down to three hours.”
The old system worked well when results remained secret. But then they started to show up on social media or websites or cable; now NBC’s own streaming service will be busy with detaiils: “Peacock will be the greatest single Olympics destination in U.S. media history,” Solomon, 55, insisted.
Meanwhile, NBC’s schedule, in Eastern Time, will be:
— The “Today Show,” 7-9 a.m.
— Daytime coverage, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. With the six-hour time difference, that’s 3 p.m. to midnight in Paris, with the top events showing up in the afternoon ET. “You’ll have swimming, gymnastics and track-and-field finals.”
— Actual primetime (8-11 p.m.,), when results will be shown in a different way, That will be 2-5 a.m. in Paris. In the U.S., Solomon said, NBC will be “blasting off with gold medals at 8 o’clock and then we’re going to infuse our storytelling with more behind-the-scenes access, more athlete-generated content and more onscreen technology.”
Some of that suggests the days when baseball’s entire World Series was in the daytime, even on weekdays; students and workers would call in sick. For the Olympics, school will be out, but some workplaces might be depleted.
NBC will still have Mike Tirico anchoring and its usual crew of analysts, working live and with recaps. “I’ve done both,” said swimming sportscaster Rowdy Gaines. “And … the passion is certainly great live.”
There will also be some new names — including rapper Snoop Dogg. “We’re planning on shaking it up,” he said.
The Olympics are a billion-dollar asset that Solomon is shaking. “I’m going to get promoted or fired,” she said. “One or the other.”