• The New York Times, Wednesday, April 18, 2012 12:09 PM

There is literally nothing that NBC Sports won’t stream during its coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Indeed, the network promises that all 32 sports at the Summer Games will be streamed live at nbcolympics.com. “The hot topic is always, ‘Why don’t you show all your sports live?’” Rick Cordella, vice president and general manager of NBC Sports Digital Media, tells The New York Times’ Media Decoder blog. “We wanted to take care of that.”

According to Media Decoder, the live streaming of every event represents a significant shift for the NBC Sports Group, which was formed after Comcast acquired control of NBC Universal. “Under General Electric, its former owner, NBC Sports did not stream live events that would be featured in prime time, lest they diminish ratings,” it notes. The new strategy, however, presents an issue for the network’s sacred prime-time broadcast.

To protect itself in that area, prime-time events like gold-medal races involving Michael Phelps will be streamed live on nbcolympics.com, but will not be archived on NBC’s Web site until sometime after the prime-time show. That said, as Cordella assures Media Decoder: “The vast majority of events will be archived immediately.”

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