Paris 2024: NBC's Reunited Highlights Factory Team Captures Big Little Moments', Tests New AI-Based Tools Ai-powered Your Daily Olympic Recap,' WSC Sports automated highlights add new wrinkles to operation By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Tuesday, August 6, 2024 - 3:31 pm
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Since launching for Beijing 2008 out of the iconic 30 Rock's iconic Studio 8H, NBC's Highlights Factory has evolved into one of most integral cogs in NBC's sprawling Olympics productions.
NBC's Eric Hamilton (right) and Wally Bruckner inside the Highlights Factory war room in Stamford
So many things happen simultaneously at the Olympics that it's easy to get lost even if you're paying attention to everything, says Eric Hamilton, director, digital video production, NBC Olympics. It's easy to get lost in the forest of everything that's going on, so having people with experience who can see through all that and understand what's important is key. Since our mandate is to cover every sport, we try to find Big Little Moments. Those are the little things in big moments that offer a different perspective from [the live linear coverage].
In addition to creating 100+ highlights per day for NBCUniversal's multiple platforms, the Highlights Factory plays a key role creating content for the new Your Daily Olympic Recap feature narrated by an AI version of Al Michaels, along with the new Discovery Multiview experience on Peacock.
Reunited and Feels So Good: Stamford Team Back Under One Roof Housed at NBC Sports Group's Stamford, CT, broadcast center since Sochi 2014, the Highlights Factory operation was largely built on in-person collaboration, with a sizable crew creating highlights out of a single large room in Stamford. However, COVID restrictions at Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022, forced NBC to split the Highlights Factory crew, with half in the usual room and half relocated to the nearby Marriott Hotel. Thankfully, for Paris 2024, Highlights Factory is once again under a single roof.
After the two COVID Olympics, says Hamilton, we're back all in one room, which is the way the Highlights Factory [model] was originally conceived. We like to be in one open room where we can call out to each other and communicate quickly and easily. We believe that is the most effective way to harvest all this content and make everyone aware of great [moments].
Quality Over Quantity: Highlights Factory Refines Its Approach for Paris NBC has crammed nearly 80 people into a massive room at the broadcast center to monitor live streams, log and edit clips, and create more than 100 video packages per day on average. The team, largely composed of veterans of the operation, is organized by experience: interns at the front and Hamilton and other key leaders at the back.
For Paris 2024, the entire Highlights Factory team is again in one room in Stamford.
At one point. Hamilton says, the Highlights Factory produced as many as 200 highlights a day, but, after extensive audience research, NBC refined its approach. Although the team is delivering half that number now, he notes, views of these clips have increased multifold.
We still cover every sport, but we've adjusted how we do it, he says. We definitely adjust [based on] the preferences of the audience for each sport. Gymnastics fans are going to want something very different than fencing fans or soccer fans. We pay a lot of attention to how people watch each of these sports, and I think that has been the major difference this year. Plus, we started to put a lot more content onto YouTube and Peacock, which has helped grow the reach of what we're doing.
Your Daily Olympic Recap' With Al Michaels: Clip Inventory for New AI Experience
One of the most buzzed-about new elements in NBC Olympics coverage this year has been the launch of Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock, in which an AI version of the Hall of Fame broadcaster narrates a series of personalized highlights. Powered by generative AI and AI voice-synthesis technology, the Daily Olympic Recap provides fans with their own customized playlist of highlights from the previous day's events most relevant to them. Each compilation features clips from Olympics coverage and is narrated by a high-quality AI re-creation of Michaels's voice, which was trained via his past appearances on NBC and matches his signature expertise and elocution.
A small team led by Jeff Graubart, senior director, programming, sports and WWE, NBC Sports, is responsible for creating the short highlights that populate the Daily Olympic Recap. A whiteboard set up in the Highlights Factory room resembles a Bingo card and helps in tracking the various highlights that need to be delivered each day. The clips serve each user's personal experience, which is based on their three favorite sports and two preferred topics (behind-the-scenes and backstories, top competition, viral and trending moments, and international focus).
The AI technology pulls from hundreds of these daily clips to generate a 10-minute playlist highlighting the most relevant moments from the prior day for each user, along with a look ahead to upcoming events. Narrated by the AI re-creation of Michaels's voice, the recaps give an overview of each selected highlight.
In addition to the Your Daily Olympic Recap, the Highlights Factory is powering the new Discovery Multiview on Peacock. In what NBC describes as an industry-first, enhanced Multiview experience designed for exploration, Discovery Multiview shows as many as four events in a curated viewing experience, with real-time on-screen descriptions informing the viewer what's at stake, such as Medal Event or Elimination Risk.
More AI Joins the Party: NBC Testing WSC Sports Automated Highlights In addition, NBC is us
