Watching the Olympics is a global event every four years, but the viewing experience can get hectic with so many sports and star athletes to follow. Peacock is making that experience easier than ever by rolling out two new features for the 2024 Paris Olympics: Multiview and Live Actions.
NBCUniversal announced the upgrades at its annual One24 technology conference today, along with other new tech and data capabilities around its advertising offering.
Peacock already vastly improved its streaming coverage of the Olympics with the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. This summer, it will get even better with two interactive features designed to help fans navigate more than 5,000 hours of live coverage, including all 329 medal events.
At a press briefing attended by Tom's Guide, Peacock executive John Jelley noted they began brainstorming how to improve the Olympics streaming experience the day after the Beijing games ended.
The biggest learning, I think, is we had a good discovery experience. It won awards for the last Winter Games and we heard that from users," said Jelley, the senior vice president for product and user experience. "But this is three times as much content, so we had to find new ways to make that even easier. That's why things like Discovery Multiview came up because we thought there's 40 events now happening live. That's a lot of content.
"What am I going to watch? And so we want to give users ways to discover the things that are most interesting to them."
Discovery Multiview delivers four times the action
Multiview functionality is available on several streaming services, including YouTube TV and Apple TV Plus for MLS Season Pass. Peacock will launch two forms of it during the Olympics. The first is a traditional multiview that displays up to four matches on one screen in sports such as track and field, soccer, and wrestling.
The second is Peacock's Discovery Multiview, which is a curated four-view experience showing important events with real-time on-screen descriptions from NBCU’s Olympic experts explaining the stakes. Viewers will be able to choose from up to four Multiview options.
"We may have one that's Team USA. We may have one that's trending events. We may have [one that's] soccer matches," Jelley said. "You'll have choice, lots of choice. We're helping you guide to the right events that are happening."
Live actions gives viewers power over their viewing
The second feature Peacock is rolling out for the Olympics is Live Actions, a sort of streaming "choose your own adventure." During live coverage, viewers can choose to continue watching the live feed of a specific event rather than going with the broadcast when it moves on to another event.
A demo video showed a "keep watching" button popping up on gymnastics coverage. By selecting that, you can stay with gymnastics rather than whipping to coverage of archery or basketball.
Live Actions will also allow viewers to add upcoming events to their "My Stuff" list for later. For example, if you're watching a swimming heat, you can add the medal match to your list — functioning like a reminder.
As Jelley explained, "We're still giving you everything you want to watch. If that particular event didn't pique your interest, you can just keep going. But there may be one later on where you're like, 'Wow, I love this sport I didn't even know existed. And now I want to keep watching it.'
With the new feature, viewers can "quickly action that — keep watching during the day and then being able to say, 'Later on in the evening, I want to start planning my next day's viewing.'"
More upgrades to Olympics coverage
Multiview and Live Actions aren't all that Peacock's rolling out to improve the Olympics viewing experience.
The service is expanding its Key Plays functionality, which currently exists for Premier League soccer matches and NFL games, to basketball and golf.
An enhanced interactive schedule will let viewers plan their Olympics viewing day-by-day. They can join events live, watch replays on demand and add events to their "My Stuff" list to watch later. Plus, a new "Search by Star Athlete" feature is joining existing searches by sport, event and team.
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