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A: The good news is that we now have so many platforms, including digital, that virtually every second of Olympic competition is available live somewhere. In the past, this was a more difficult process. As recently as the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, for example, NBC broadcast a grand total of 171.5 hours of total coverage on a single network. This inevitably meant that some sports and athletes weren't going to get appropriate coverage (and at those Games in particular many of the women's sports were relegated to a brief highlight in prime time at best). Today, if you're a fan of archery or table tennis, or anything else, it's all there. Where we continue to make tough decisions is with regard to our prime time coverage. We tend to focus on a few sports that are very popular and whose athletes are a little more well known, such as swimming, gymnastics, track & field, diving and beach volleyball. During the Rio Games it should be interesting on some nights as there will be multiple events taking place and we'll have to decide which ones to follow and when it makes sense to break away to something else. That's the challenge but it's one we enjoy and embrace and hope to get right more often than not so the viewers can enjoy these Games.
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A: The Opening Ceremony is arguably the most important night because it sets the tone for the city and for the athletes, it is their memory of a lifetime. It can be tricky because unlike a sporting event, there are so many moving parts and themes. It comes down to 3 parts: the creative - it's very cool to see how each country chooses to show itself to the world. the parade of nations - who doesn't love the fashion statements? and the protocol, lighting of the torch, etc. It's easy to be cynical about almost everything these days but when you watch the Opening Ceremony and see the amazing creativity, the athletes marching & smiling together and the celebration, it's very moving and very hopeful.
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A: Well it would be nice to wait for one Olympics to end before planning for the subsequent Games but we don't have that luxury. In fact, we've already made multiple trips to South Korea for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games. The turnaround time is especially short between Summer & Winter Games, closer to 18 months than 2 years. We have a little bit more of a cushion after a Winter Olympics, more like 2 1/2 years but Summer Games are much bigger, with more countries, athletes, sports, venues, etc. so they require that additional time. In South Korea, we recently had a World Broadcaster Meeting, where we get together with other rights holding broadcasters and meet with the IOC's television arm, OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Services). At these meetings, we interact with the PyeongChang 2018 leadership team and get to know the location, venues, etc. We can thus begin to formulate our planning, which includes everything from production & programming to catering & hotels and many other areas as well. Tokyo is the site of the 2020 Summer Games and we have visited there once already to meet with their leadership team. And we already have familiarity with Beijing, host of the 2022 Winter Olympics, from the 2008 Summer Games. It's nice that the next 3 are all relatively close so I think we'll visit more than one each time we're in the neighborhood.