Rio Olympics

A survey of nearly 4,000 millennial women from Influenster finds that 75% plan to do their Summer Games viewing on actual television, compared to only 18% who aim to do so on streaming video. More than half — 54% — planned to watch some of the games, all of which is good news for NBC, Tim Baysinger reports.

Television is poised to be the dominant medium by which U.S. viewers watch the upcoming Rio Summer Games, recent research indicates. A poll of over 1,100 U.S. internet users found 84% will watch the games on live TV, while desktop and mobile trailed considerably behind at 44% and 36%, respectively.

NBC will unveil new episodes of The Voice and Superstore during the Summer Olympics. Superstore, which is heading into its second season, will air a special Olympics-themed episode on Aug. 19, immediately following Olympics coverage. A 30-minute preview of the season 11 opener of The Voice, featuring the debuts of new coaches Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys, will premiere on Aug. 21, immediately following the Games’ closing ceremony.

NBC has local ad packages across broadcast, cable and digital. Right now it’s negotiating. The network wants much higher pricing than 2012, but buyers say that won’t hold.

Non-Olympic sponsors may for the first time feature Olympic athletes in their ads, but there’s a catch. Those campaigns need to be ready now, geared to build buzz for the games this summer.

Seven months before the opening ceremony, NBC Sports’ ad sales chief Seth Winter said the network is ahead of where it was at this time four years ago before the London games. But it wasn’t always looking that way. Pointing to the proliferation of tablet and mobile usage over the past four years, Winter is predicting a 50% increase in digital ad sales over London. Though, in an effort to protect the TV broadcast, NBC is requiring a certain level of ad spend on linear for those that want to buy digital spots.

With the 2016 Summer Games taking place in Rio de Janeiro, which is just an hour ahead of the United States’ Eastern time zone, the network can broadcast many high-profile events live in prime time. Make no mistake, NBC executives are thrilled about that prospect, but it means tweaking a formula that has worked so well in recent Olympics.

For advertisers, the Olympics and the Super Bowl have a lot in common: They both cost a fortune, demand commercials that make a splash and bring in some of TV’s biggest audiences. But Madison Avenue seems to have a more favorable view of the global Games than it does the Big Game. With a year to go before the opening ceremonies for the 2016 Summer Olympics, NBCUniversal believes it will sell well over $1 billion in advertising for its telecast, slated to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Tomorrow, which marks one year until the first Olympic events, NBC’s Natalie Morales will report live from Rio for the Today show while Miguel Almaguer will report live for Nightly News. On Rockefeller Plaza, several Olympians will appear on Today  demonstrating their sports. Then at 8 p.m. ET, NBCUniversal will “road block” a 60-second promo for the games across all of its 18 broadcast and cable networks, including NBC, Telemundo, NBCSN, CNBC, MSNBC and USA.