How the delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics hurts NBC: Peacock's streaming launch is the biggest loser

Vulture

The delay of the 2020 Olympics to 2021 blows up NBC's months of planning to launch Peacock in July ahead of the Summer Games, according to Josef Adalian. Peacock would've featured some exclusive coverage, plus the ability to stream the Opening Ceremony and Closing Ceremony before they aired in primetime. NBC is also facing good and bad news with the delay in terms of advertisers. "The good news, of course, is that NBC should be able to roll some — maybe even most — of those ad contracts over to the 2021 Games. After all, Coca-Cola is still going to be selling soda a year from now, and a delayed Olympics will still make for an excellent marketing platform," says Adalian. "There’s even the chance that, assuming global governments are able to dramatically curb the coronavirus and halt the pandemic, the 2021 Summer Games could become a worldwide celebration of humanity’s triumph over disease. Still, even under that most rosy of scenarios, NBC could still face challenges. Some advertisers will have different marketing needs a year from now and might not think the Olympics match their needs. Others may bail altogether because the global economy is quickly headed toward a recession or because losses caused by the pandemic reduce their ability to spend millions on Olympics advertising. Maybe the ad market will be red-hot by the time the Games finally air, but it’s also possible the country will be experiencing severe economic pain at that time, reducing demand for advertising time and cutting into NBC’s profits." ALSO: NBC Universal says it's "actively working with our advertising partners to navigate this postponement."