Rio Streaming

The Rio Olympics was the most streamed event ever, which marked a massive change for covering live events.

Dror Ginzberg, CEO of online video specialists Wochit, said: “The Rio Olympics will be looked at as the last games where traditional TV was priorities over other channels. For future Olympics, social media and on demand video will become equal partners to live TV. This is especially true as viewing the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea will be impacted by a significant time difference in the UK, which will only hasten consumers’ move away from viewing the action on live TV, to social media and on demand video,”

Nielsen, on the other hand, confirmed that streaming of the Rio Games during the first 10 days surpassed the two previous Olympics (London and Sochi). Because of this, the number of traditional TV viewers is significantly less when compared to the last few Olympics.  

IOC president Thomas Bach said, “Today, most (broadcasters) have their own digital platforms and we see that they’re using these to bring the public to their traditional channels. Digital feeds traditional TV and vice versa.”