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 Paris 2024 Olympic Games: Multiview and Live Actions.
NBCUniversal announced the updates today at its annual One24 technology conference, along with other new technology and data capabilities around its advertising offering.
Peacock already greatly improved its Olympic streaming coverage with the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. This summer, it will be even better with two interactive features designed to help fans navigate more than 5,000 hours of live coverage, including all 329 medal events.
In a press conference attended by Jugo Mobile, Peacock executive JohnJelley noted that they started thinking about how to improve the Olympics streaming experience the day after the Beijing games ended.
I think the biggest learning is that we had a good discovery experience. It won awards at the last Winter Games and we heard that from users,” said Jelley, senior vice president of product and user experience. “But this is three times as much content, so we had to find new ways to do it even more. easier. That’s why things like Discovery Multiview came about because we think there are 40 live events now. That’s a lot of content.
“What am I going to watch? That’s why we want to give users ways to discover the things they find most interesting.”
Discovery Multiview offers 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 versions during the Olympics. The first is a traditional multi-view that shows up to four games on one screen in sports such as track, football and wrestling.
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The second is Peacock’s Discovery Multiview, which is a four-view curated experience that shows major events with real-time on-screen descriptions from NBCU Olympic experts explaining what’s at stake. Viewers will be able to choose from up to four multi-view options.
“We may have one that is Team USA. We may have one that trends at events. We may have [one that’s] football games,” Jelley said. “You’ll have options, lots of options. “We help guide you toward the right events that are happening.”
Live action gives viewers power over what they see
The second feature Peacock is launching for the Olympics is Live Actions, a sort of “choose your own adventure” live stream. During live coverage, viewers can choose to continue watching the live stream of a specific event instead of continuing the stream when it transitions to another event.
A demo video showed a “continue watching” button appearing on gymnastics coverage. By selecting that, you can stick with gymnastics instead of covering 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, serving as a reminder.
As Jelley explained: “We still give you everything you want to see. If that particular event didn’t pique your interest, you can move on. But there may be one later on where you say, ‘Wow, I love this sport that I didn’t even know I had.’ It existed and now I want to continue seeing it.”
With the new feature, viewers can “do this quickly: keep watching throughout the day and then be able to say, ‘Later at night, I want to start planning what I’m going to watch the next day.'”
More Olympics coverage updates
Multiview and Live Actions are not all that Peacock is implementing to improve the Olympic viewing experience.
The service is expanding its Key Plays functionality, which currently exists for From Premier League and NFL football matches to basketball and golf.
An enhanced interactive program will allow viewers to plan their viewing of the Olympic Games day by day. They can join live events, watch on-demand replays, and add events to their “My Stuff” list to watch later. Additionally, a new “Search by Star Athlete” feature joins existing searches by sport, event and team.
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