NBC and NBCSN will air more than 76 hours of Olympic trials coverage this year, a 13 percent increase over 2012.
The trials schedule, set to be released today, includes the usual heavy dose of women’s gymnastics, track and field, and swimming June 24-July 10 on both the cable and broadcast channels.
Two notable additions are in store this year: Men’s gymnastics trials will air in prime time for the first time, on NBCSN on June 23, and the diving trials will return to prime time for the first time since 2004 during the week of June 18.
Coverage begins April 9-10 with two days of wrestling trials on NBCSN. All of the trials will serve to promote the Rio coverage, but the trials are expected to perform well in their own right, said Peter Diamond, executive vice president of programming for NBC Olympics. In 2012, trials broadcasts were two of the top-five-rated prime-time programs in the last week of June, and NBC won the week overall.
“It’s all part of our overall Olympic strategy,” Diamond said. “The competition of the trials, the drama of the trials, it just creates tremendous buzz to pretty significant audiences across all our platforms.”
