NBC announces full Olympics broadcast plans; includes all events online and multiple apps

The 2012 Summer Olympics will be all the news in just a few months, and the United States television network that holds the broadcast rights for the event, NBCUniversal, has announced its full broadcast plans for the event. NBC’s announcement of its plans included a few highlights, including the fact that every single minute of Olympic action would be available online (with a caveat I’ll mention later) and that there would be a couple apps to help you keep up with live events and highlights.

NBC reportedly will have two different apps that will be available on phones and tablets, and presumably the apps will be available for both iOS and Android. One of the apps will deliver live video and the other will compile highlight clips for viewers. The big headline of NBC’s announcement, however, was that every moment of every event would be available for streaming online, that is, if you are a subscriber of a cable or satellite TV service. All 5,535 hours of Olympic events will be available online, but users will have to log in and authenticate as subscribers of a pay service. Traditional TV coverage will also be available on NBC, NBC Sports, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, and Telemundo.

One other new aspect of this year’s coverage will be the inclusion of a 3D channel showing several events in 3D. This channel will be part of a partnership NBC has with Panasonic, however, the downside to the channel will be that all events presented on the channel will be delayed 24 hours.