Comment: The innovations revolutionising the Paris 2024 Olympics

Since it was first televised back in 1936, the way The Olympics has been broadcast and consumed has evolved tremendously.

Viewers of the upcoming games will be able to soak up the atmosphere of the opening and closing ceremonies in all their glory, enjoy full coverage of all 329 medal events, and choose from 11,000 hours of content including live events and extra coverage about athletes, teams, and behind-the-scenes material.

Since Olympics coverage was first streamed at the 2008 Olympics, streaming’s role has increased in importance at each subsequent Games. Viewers today have grown accustomed to being able to follow the action on multiple platforms and devices, from wherever they happen to be.

Streaming is set to be a central component of this year’s Olympics coverage, allowing viewers to take control of how, when and where they watch the action. And with so much content to navigate, it’s hardly surprising that streaming services have introduced a whole host of features to improve discoverability and enhance the overall viewing experience.

Personalisation will also be used to deliver more engaging and targeted experiences to viewers, on a level not seen before at the Olympics.

In the US, recap and snackable content will be crucial alongside live streams, given the time difference. There is also a big focus on reaching a large audience.

For example, NBC is leveraging content across a wider network than ever before. This includes all of its own channels, such as NBC Sports, Telemundo, Golf Channel, CNBC, and USA Network. The broadcaster has also signed a number of partnerships with social media channels, including Youtube, Meta, Snapchat, and TikTok.

Also significant is its big use of influencers, including a number of athletes and celebrities, all aimed at reaching a younger audience.

Viewers will also be able to stream full live and on-demand coverage on NBC’s Peacock service, and after some subscribers complained about the streamer’s delivery of Olympics coverage in the past, this year, it’s gone all out on new innovative features to improve the viewing experience.

For example, it has introduced a multiview feature to allow fans to watch four events simultaneously on the same screen so that they don’t have to keep switching streams to follow action in their favorite events. Viewers can even watch a load of events across multiple devices, switching the audio and clicking through to full screen at key moments.

To help viewers navigate the action, the service will deliver real-time on-screen key information about athletes and teams as well as potential outcomes in terms of heats, eliminations and medals. With up to 40 events happening simultaneously, this feature is being heralded as a game changer.

Subscribers will also be able to personalise their viewing with the interactive live actions feature that lets viewers choose the events they want to follow. The streamer will present fans with a personalised daily recap featuring relevant events from the previous day that are of interest to the viewer, all delivered in the AI-generated voice of sports announcer Al Michaels.

Additionally, Peacock’s Olympic Hub provides an easy-to-navigate destination for fans featuring a prominent display of major live events, browsing by sport, athlete search, interactive schedules, medal standings, and key play highlights, catering to both avid and casual viewers.

In the UK and Ireland, Warner Bros Discovery’s discovery+ will be showing all the action over more than 55 live channel feeds. Warner Bros has also pulled out all the stops with discovery+, to allow fans to personalise and optimise their viewing experience.

Users can create their own multi-screen Olympic experience, allowing them to watch on TV, phone, or tablet, whether at home or on the go. In-player gold medal alerts will notify viewers of imminent unmissable medal moments, and dedicated pages for all 32 Olympic sports will enable users to add specific events to their watch lists.

The service will also optimise in-play discovery, allowing seamless transitions between live events with access to additional camera angles.

Additionally, discovery+ will offer multi-feed audio, allowing users to choose from up to 20 languages and access commentary from over 400 Eurosport commentators across Europe.

Alongside discovery+, Warner Bros’ Max, which is now available across 25 European countries and 65 countries and regions around the globe, will also stream the Olympics. The service has recently been extended to several additional countries in Europe, so it will be interesting to see whether Warner Bros’ move to extend the reach of the service in time for the Olympics will pay off with increased subscriber numbers.

The Paris 2024 Olympics presents a perfect opportunity for media owners to trial new ways to engage viewers, and to monetise the content they have the rights to. Streaming is seen by media companies and rights owners as a key way to attract younger audiences to sports. The Paris Olympics will be crucial for targeting this demographic and evaluating how streaming can make sports content more engaging for them.

France Television will use its digital platform France.tv as a means to target younger audiences through live streaming and interactive content, in order to build a more engaged and diverse viewership.

The event will also showcase a variety of cutting-edge initiatives designed to deliver captivating and immersive experiences to viewers. This year, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) is taking a much more cinematic approach to coverage. It will use cinematic lenses for the first time across all sports, to deliver a viewing experience more akin to the big screen.

OBS is also enhancing its storytelling capabilities by leveraging technology and data to deliver more athlete-centric coverage and immersive experiences. To better capture the action, it will use twice as many multi-camera replay systems for freeze frame slow motion replays than at the previous event, as well as more drones and cable cameras than ever before.

Data will be used to drive the storytelling with dynamic graphics showing live data such as athlete positioning data and performance metrics. Additionally, volumetric video will be used to create live 3D footage of athletes, for distribution to rights holders worldwide. At the same time, we will likely see other experimentation. For example, the BBC is set to deliver vertical video, optimised for viewing on mobile devices.

The Paris 2024 Olympics will set a new standard for broadcasting, with streaming and personalisation at the core of the viewer experience. This evolution not only promises to make the Games more accessible and interactive, but also offers media owners innovative ways to engage viewers. As the world gathers to celebrate athletic excellence, the advancements in broadcasting technology will ensure that every viewer can experience the Olympics in a way that is more personalised, immersive, and interactive than ever before.

Rory Renwick is business development director at Accedo