Saturday, August 11, 2012

NBC to stream 2012 Olympics closing ceremony live online

NBC to stream 2012 Olympics closing ceremony live online
Greg Gazin - August 12th, 2012
#london2012
Probably much to everyone’s surprise, some of you will be able to watch the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Summer Olympics streamed live over the Internet. According to a post on Mashable, the chairman of NBC Sports acknowledged that their less than spectacular handling of the opening ceremonies led to the change of heart.
The post also noted, that according to the press release, the streaming would take place beginning at 4PM ET (1PM PT) at NBCOlympics.com as well as via the NBC Olympics Live Extra App. Apparently, only customers, I assume, U.S., who verify their subscriptions to their cable or satellite accounts, etc., will have access.
While the exact final lineup has not been fully unveiled, it looks like we’ll see performances of the reunited Spice Girls, the reunited Wham as well as One Direction as well as possible performance by Madness and The Who amongst many others. Interestingly enough, according to The Guardian, who felt that NBC bowed under pressure which lead to the announcement of the live streaming of the final event, says live (NBC TV) viewers will be out of luck as the ceremony, including these performances will not be available to them. They will of course be able to see them, as the report says, “in a more lucrative prime-time slot”. That slot will be 7PM ET.
The Washington Times reported that the event will be uniquely British, have about 20 artists involved who are household names and will features about 30 pieces of music.
Perhaps NBC is trying to gain back some of the brownie points they lost as the whole gong show unraveled beginning with the opening ceremony, which they refused to show live and ended up showing it tape-delayed. Of course it continued by announcers releasing results and outcomes before the races were even seen by their viewers. Of course, this lead to incredible chatter across many social media channels including the Twittersphere which spawned the hashtag #NBCFail. In fact, it got so wild, one journalist, Guy Adams, ended up losing his Twitter account for publicly criticizing NBC over their coverage.
In any event, it looks like the masses will benefit giving that many more people the opportunity to take in an Olympic Closing Ceremony in its entirety live as it happens.

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