NBCUniversal, the longtime home for the Olympic Games in the U.S., will be shutting down its pay TV Olympic Channel on September 30, Sports Business Journal (SBJ) reported Friday.
Formerly known as Universal HD, Olympic Channel was relaunched in 2017, airing select coverage and highlights of Olympic and Paralympic games. It’s also a joint venture between NBC Sports and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).
“In order to best reach our target audiences, we are reevaluating our programming distribution strategy regarding the content that currently airs on Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA with our partners at the IOC and USOPC,” an NBC Sports spokesperson told SBJ. “We will be announcing our exciting new plans for Olympic content in the fall.”
Olympic Channel would be the second linear channel NBCU’s shuttered within the past year, as NBC Sports Network ceased operations last December. Most of that channel’s programming, SBJ wrote, was transferred to the USA cable network and NBCU’s Peacock service.
The news comes just after NBCU boasted upfront revenue of $7 billion as well as 20% year-over-year growth on digital and streaming intake. Moreover, Peacock added 4 million subscribers in the first quarter – totaling over 13 million paid subs.
Though streaming is a key focus for NBCU, the company isn’t moving away from linear anytime soon. NBC currently has exclusive broadcast rights to the Olympic Games up to 2032.
“It's a showcase property that no one else has,” Rick Burton, professor of sports management at Syracuse University, told ABC News in February. “They just have to make it more attractive for people who are moving away from TV.”
NBC saw record low viewership for the 2022 Winter Olympics, averaging a combined audience of 11.4 million across NBC’s broadcast channel, USA’s cable network and Peacock. NBC alone reached an average of 9.3 million primetime U.S. viewers throughout the games’ duration.
Still, the Beijing Olympics (along with the Super Bowl) helped boost U.S. cable and broadcast views, according to Nielsen’s monthly viewing snapshot in February. Comcast and NBCU also launched a virtual reality app for this year’s Winter Olympics, enhancing digital coverage.
It’s yet unknown where NBCU’s Olympic Channel content will end up, but Peacock is a likely candidate. NBCU CEO Jeff Shell said last month he doesn’t think the streaming industry is “remotely close to peak content.” He added February sports viewing helped increase Peacock’s Q1 subscriber numbers.
While viewers are shifting from linear to streaming platforms, live sports events remain a popular genre. So, sports leagues and other distributors are looking for ways to diversify consumer viewing options.
At a StreamTV Show panel last month, Rich Calacci, chief revenue officer at sports-content firm Overtime, pointed to NFL as an example of offering viewers more choices – from free ad-supported video on Twitter to its over-the-air local broadcasts for cord cutters.
“That combination of distribution paths works really well for the highest-value content, which is the case in the NFL,” said Calacci.