NBCUniversal to close Olympic Channel later this year

NBCUniversal closes another cable sports channel.

The company announced on Friday that it would close its Olympic channel on September 30. The company previously closed the NBCSN Sports Network late last year.

A spokesperson for NBC Sports said the company will find out where the Olympic channel’s sports content will reside once the channel is closed.

“To reach our target audience as much as possible, we will re-evaluate our programming distribution strategy for content currently broadcast on Olympic Channel: US Team House with our partners at the IOC and USOPC,” said the spokesperson. “In the fall, we will announce our exciting new plans for Olympic content.

In the case of NBSN, NBCUniversal moved some of its live feeds to the USA Network and the rest to the company’s Peacock streaming service.

NBCUniversal has been the exclusive television station (at least in the US) for the Winter and Summer Olympics since 2000 and has a long-term contract with the IOC until the 2032 Games.

This was the context for the launch of Olympic Channel in 2017, when the US Olympic Committee acted as the minority owner of the company. The channel broadcasts live events involving Olympic sports, outside of the Games (think World Cups, etc.). Last year at the Tokyo Olympics, the channel was the first to broadcast the Olympics live, covering tennis and wrestling during the Games.

Increasingly, however, as the pay-TV package dwindles and access to Olympic channels dwindles (it was 47 million households at the end of 2021, according to Comcast’s $80 million annual report), company began to reconsider its approach. to detect coverage. .

So on TV, NBC and the US became the de facto home of the sport, with Peacock taking a big gamble on broadcasting the Olympics. For the Beijing 2022 Games earlier this year, Peacock streamed all the events live, to the first streaming service.

NBCSN was the first victim last year. This year it’s time for the Olympic Channel to feel the pain.