Four years later, Peacock is taking center stage in Paris, streaming 5,000 hours out of NBCU’s total 7,000 hours of coverage. “We’ll stream every sport, every event and all 329 medal ceremonies,” promised Peacock president Kelly Campbell.
Some of those 5,000 hours will be given over to Peacock-exclusive Olympics originals fronted by famous faces familiar to Gen Z. For example, comedians Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson are joining forces for an eight-episode Olympics Highlights series where the duo provide joke-driven commentary on the major events of the games. Think “Weekend Update Goes to the Olympics.”
Meanwhile, podcast superstar Alex Cooper is getting her own Andy Cohen-esque showcase, Watch with Alex Cooper. Campbell described Cooper’s show as a “series of live interactive watch parties” where the Call Her Daddy host assembles her friends to cheer on Team USA and interact with fans in real time via social media.
“I thought, ‘What can we do that’s different on Peacock?’” Cooper said during the presentation, adding that she’s specifically focused on engaging her Gen Z audience in all the Olympics drama.
“You gotta be a little ADHD,” she joked about getting younger viewers to pay attention to the Games. “I want them to know, ‘You can fit in on my show. We’re just going to be hanging out and talking.’”
Speaking with reporters after the presentation, Campbell elaborated on how Peacock’s Olympics strategy reflects the streamer’s emphasis on using sports to introduce new subscribers to its original programming. “Sports plays a really big role in hooking new subscribers, and then they discover all of the entertainment content we have so they don’t churn out,” she noted.
Artificial Al-telligence
It was left to Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts to unveil what’s bound to be one of NBCU’s most consequential—and controversial—Olympics programming moves: the AI-powered Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock.
Available starting July 27 via web browsers, select mobile and tablet devices, and the Peacock app, Your Daily Olympic Recap allows users to build their own personalized highlight reel of the previous day’s events. And as an added bonus, all of those highlights are narrated by legendary sportscaster Al Michaels.
Since it would obviously take a miracle for the real Michaels to narrate millions of video clips, NBCU employed AI voice synthesis technology to replicate his immediately recognizable inflections.
