YouTube To Power Live Streaming Olympics Coverage For NBC

More than 3,000 hours of live streaming footage from the Olympics will be broadcast online, making it the most live content, by far, ever to be broadcast from the global competition. In case you were wondering, yes, that equates to every single event during the entire Olympic period will be available to Web surfers in the US. This is the first time that has happened.

According to NBC's preliminary Olympics website, viewers will also be able to replay content online. In other words, there will be more online video than ever before, and it's sure to drive page views to NBC.com like the site has never seen. Apparently the streaming technology will be powered by YouTube, but the streams will only be available on the NBC site.

During the 2010 Olympics, viewers for the first time ever were able to watch coverage of the games from their mobile phones. However, the actual depth of content that was available online was limited. NBC wanted people to tune into its own TV network and its sister networks. The mobile and online aspects were more for text-based updates and keeping track of medal counts, and so forth. Now, though, monetizing streaming video is a much more viable option, and NBC will no doubt make a killing there.

[via Time]