Online video is making great strides to providing more content where television networks and nonaffiliated channels cannot. As we all should know, the Olympics are being held in China this year. NBC has been covering the games using traditional television distribution, but this year NBC has put a lot into delivering content via broadband video and the number of viewers is incredible . Check out these numbers: NBC TAMi rating. Looking at online viewers last week (8/8 – 8/13), NBCOlympics.com has attracted 25 million unique visitors, driving 456 million page views and 22 million video streams which total 3.5 million hours of video consumed. As of August 18, 2008 NBCOlympics.com has severed 40.7 million video streams, more than 750 million page views and more than 36 million unique. This shows the reach that online video is having.

NBC used Microsoft’s Sliverlight to create a brand new experience in online video with picture-in-picture, 4 live concurrent streams, zero buffer rewinding and full screen video. We’re seeing a new dimension being added to the online experience. I’m excited to see how other online video players will respond.