London 2012 - Ultimate Disruption?

by Mike Bloxham, Aug 1, 2012, 8:15 AM

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With all the shenanigans over in London right now surrounding the Olympic games, it’s inevitable that the lives of Londoners and those in towns and cities impacted by the Games are turned upside down in a whirlwind of activity and more than a little sporting patriotism.

For those of us farther afield, our media consumption is similarly disrupted. 

From changes in the broadcast schedule of an array of TV channels, through online streaming of live events, downloads of videos from YouTube, an uplift in social media activity (both around the opening ceremony and beyond), as well as a shift in the emphasis of the content we’re accessing, many of us are manifesting very different patterns of media consumption than in a non-Olympic summer.

Whether using more media or watching different content, to varying degrees the Games represent one of the most disruptive media events in the worldwide media calendar.

But while we can readily see evidence of increased sports media consumption, what is sacrificed or deferred?  And what gets the honor of being consumed in real-time?  What proportion of people use the DVR for their normal program choices and how many choose to record the Olympics? (After all, we aren’t devotees of every sport on display.)

When it comes to time-shifting, what’s the option of choice?  Is it the DVR or will it be online alternatives?  For example, I wasn’t able to watch the opening ceremony live but my first stop for time-shifted viewing turned out to YouTube for the James Bond / Queen Elizabeth skit

And then there’s social media.  Quite apart from the fact that the volume of local Twitter traffic was apparently responsible for jamming the networks informing commentators of event timings, there’s an awful lot of news being broken informally on people’s news feeds via the Share button.  Whether linking to news stories, videos or pictures uploaded by individuals in London right now, Facebook and Twitter have come alive with Olympic content.

We’ve already heard that this year is the year of the Streaming Olympics, the Tablet Olympics and the Second Screen Olympics. Probably all of these will turn out to be true. (The one thing that wasn’t predicted widely was the parachuting monarch, but that’s another story.)

The reality is that while disruption to our normal pattern of media consumption will be pretty much universal for anyone closely following the event, the precise nature of that disruption will be particular to each of us.  It may involve more daytime viewing of video, more social viewing in public spaces, more streaming, more use of a wider range of video sources or more family-centric appointment viewing.

What do you think will be the dominant media consumption trends when the last medal has been awarded, the cheers have faded and Mr. Bean has left the stadium?

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