NBC To Offer Over 5500 Hours of Olympic Games Programming

The Summer Olympics are coming, and NBC is ramping up its coverage big time for the games. Starting July 27th, wide scale coverage of the sporting events will be available on a variety of NBC owned stations and the Internet.

Purists will lament the lack of any live prime time coverage, a result of the time difference between the United States and London, England where the Olympic games are being held. While Americans are enjoying their evenings, it is the dead of night in London. This means key events will be seen several hours after having actually occurred.

For authenticated viewers, NBCOlympics.com will have an unprecedented amount of coverage. Indeed, more than 3,500 hours will be broadcast, including every sport being conducted during the games. The site will also include all of the medal ceremonies in their entirety, something that purists can actually cheer about. The one caveat to the fun of the live streams is that some of the usual prime time favorites will be saved or archived until after the west coast coverage ends.

On NBC, weekday coverage starts at 10 in the morning, immediately after the conclusion of The Today Show. On the weekends, coverage begins on a more flexible schedule, but is expected to start as early as 5 a.m. on some days.

Coverage on NBC's associated stations includes tennis on Bravo, boxing on CNBC, and a variety of different sports and feature packages on MSNBC. Telemundo will offer coverage for the Spanish speaking audience, and there will also be two different mobile phone applications offered.

For cable, satellite, and telco, Panasonic is also presenting 242 hours of Olympic events in 3D.

In all, the complete NBC Olympic offerings will include 5,535 hours of programming.