NBC O&Os Sending 31 Journos To Olympics

As the networks of NBCUniversal prepare to present the most live Winter Olympics ever, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations today announced that it has dispatched 31 journalists, including a member of its national digital team to the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.

The station group’s team includes news and sports anchors, reporters, producers and digital editors from 10 NBC/Telemundo owned stations, including Olympic veterans Bruce Beck from WNBC New York; Brian Curtis from KXAS Dallas; Kevin Nathan from WVIT Hartford, Conn.; and journalist Jeremy Berg who will be solely dedicated to creating and delivering unique content around the winter Games for the stations’ digital audiences.

The XXIII Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, begin on Feb. 8.

“Our team — the largest team ever to cover a Winter Olympics — will deliver every heart pumping Olympic moment to our audiences like never before,” said Valari Staab, president, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations. “With a team of bilingual and digital reporters, and seasoned anchors, we’ll personalize this exciting global event to our audiences through stories that will spotlight our local Olympic champions for 18 straight days.”   

Headquartered in the Gangneung Coastal Cluster Set at Olympic Park, the NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations’ 2018 Winter Olympics team will report from various venues and locations throughout the Games for their viewers at home. The special content will be accessible through the stations’ on-air, online, digital, mobile and social channels as well as out-of-home platforms such as taxi cabs.

The PyeongChang station team will also contribute to The Olympic Zone, a 30-minute nightly show, in collaboration with NBC Sports Regional Networks. The Olympic Zone will air Monday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC O&Os and affiliates Feb. 8-24. The half-hour program will highlight local U.S. athletes, feature customized local content and preview NBC’s live primetime coverage of the 2018 Winter Games.

To help local audiences get closer to all the Winter Olympic action taking place half-way around the world, the stations’ digital content will feature:  

• Exclusive stories from Jeremy Berg as he reports from all the competitions and Olympic venues in South Korea for the stations’ digital audiences.
• A Winter Olympics-dedicated page, “The Winter Games” that is available to users across all station mobile/ digital platforms. The site will allow users to access the latest Olympics news and photos, medal counts and all competition results.
• A new video hub that will feature dozens of interviews with Team USA athletes.
• New interactive Olympics games, including the “What Are These Olympians Drawing?” game where users will be able to win drawings made by Team USA athletes.

NBCUniversal will present more than 2,400 hours of coverage of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games across its networks and digital platforms. NBC’s coverage of the PyeongChang Games begins in primetime on Thursday, Feb. 8, at 8 p.m. ET — one night before Opening Ceremony coverage on Friday, Feb. 9 — and continues until the Closing Ceremony on Sunday, Feb. 25. For the first time for a Winter Games, NBC will present Olympic primetime coverage live across all time zones.