Paris 2024: NBC Olympics Technical Efforts Will Be Four Times Larger Than the Tokyo 2020 Games' A team of 3,000 will deliver content to U.S. viewers; Peacock will be major content hub for 329 events By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, July 9, 2024 - 9:18 am
Print This Story
With less than three weeks until the start of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the production team at NBC Olympics is hard at work on both sides of the Atlantic, getting operations and workflows nailed down. With approximately 3,000 people set to work on delivering 329 events via NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, and related cable networks, the team is applying the finishing touches.
Here is a preview of NBC's plans (and a hint to some of the stories we here at SVG will be diving into when we head to Paris).
In terms of scale, NBC Olympics says the technical transformation from the Tokyo Games has been massive, quadrupling in size. And, although the broadcaster will have a smaller presence at the IBC, the effort at its Stamford, CT, facility will be larger, and it will have eight studio locations throughout Paris.
An Opening Ceremony Unlike Any Other The Olympics Opening Ceremony always makes a big splash, but this year that splash is literal: the parade of athletes will take place on 92 boats floating down the Seine. More than 10,000 athletes, dancers, and even a few international musical acts will be involved. It could easily be the largest televised event in history, with OBS (Olympic Broadcast Services) deploying more than 100 cameras to create the world feed and NBC Olympics adding in 45 of its unilateral cameras. Jibs, cranes, cable cams, eight drones, three helicopters, and four boats with stabilized cameras and jibs are in the OBS mix, and 200 camera phones will be deployed to cover the country teams during the parade. All told, the full camera complement from all entities is expected to near 1,000.
NBC Olympics in Paris The IBC will be at the 80,000-sq.-meter Paris Le Bourget Exhibition Centre. NBC's presence will be smaller than in previous years, housing camera shading, two announce booths, and a midsize studio that will be at the center of Peacock programming. The focus there will be on gathering signals and ensuring that they are normalized and corrected before being sent to Stamford, where control rooms, record wall, edit rooms, playback, and graphics will be housed. The production format of choice is 1080p HDR at 50 Hz with 10 channels of Dolby Atmos. In addition, the entire operation will rely on SMPTE ST 2110 for video and Dante for audio.
The eight studio locations, meanwhile, will be spread across Paris, bringing the City of Lights to viewers in the U.S. The most important, Studio A, on the Place du Trocad ro overlooking the Eiffel Tower, will be home to Mike Tirico for part of the daytime show. The full 360-degree shooting environment will feature wrought-iron gates and multiple locations for interviews, highlights, and standups. Studio B, meanwhile, will be home to the Today show.
Both studios will have four pedestal cameras, a Steadicam, and a Technocrane, and Studio A will also have a cable cam running to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
NBC is leaning into TikTok with a set at the Team USA house, which is at the Palais Brongniart. Most nights during the Games, a live TikTok show in front of an audience will likely air from the Palais.
Telemundo will have its own studio location, overlooking the Arc de Triomphe (a location it will share with NBC Evening News).
Of course, studio locations are only part of the plan for Paris 2024, and NBC Olympics will have a big ENG presence across the city. Five ENG crews will capture footage and interviews with athletes' families and more, with the elements pulled together for air in Control Room C in Stamford. In addition, nine NBC Sports crews will be capturing content for the nightly Olympic Zone on NBC as well as covering breaking news from the various mixed zones.
At the venues, NBC Olympics will have different levels of production. The big three - athletics, gymnastics, and swimming - will have the most dedicated resources, including mobile units, allowing NBC to enhance the OBS production. Production trucks will be onsite at Stade de France, which will host athletics; Bercy Arena, home to gymnastics; and Paris La Defense Arena, the swimming events. Each venue will also have an instrumented jib camera to enable larger-than-life graphics and - with the help of SMT, Piero, Fingerworks, and Dartfish - plenty of virtual graphics and analysis.
NBC Olympics will also have a unilateral presence for diving, golf, beach and indoor volleyball, tennis, wrestling, the urban sports, the outside races, basketball prelims, and soccer.
To enhance coverage, multiple venues will have 360 3D replay capabilities and cinematic cameras.
Meanwhile, the Stateside Effort Is Larger Than Ever The Stamford facility will be very much at the center of NBC Olympics efforts. Twelve control rooms will be dedicated to Paris 2024 (there will be only one truck at the loading dock). NBC Stamford will also fire up Riedel Simplylive rooms, where content creation will be enhanced for a wide range of production needs. In addition, 28 off-tube announce booths offer three levels of capabilities: eight booths are enhanced, featuring a producer who handles graphics creation and insertion; four super booths provide telestration capabilities as well as remotely controlled cameras, allowing talent to appear on screen.
Also at Stamford, a tape facility will operate 24 hours a day. EVS and Avid editing stations (five dedicated to cutting events down) and media-management operations will be overseen by a team of more than 60 operators and 40 production staffers, including more than 20 turnaround producers. They will work closely with the venue producers and announce
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Liberty University on why broadcast technology isn't just a technical invest...
08/05/2026
COW Jobs: UGC, On-Camera Video Content
Brie Clayton May 7, 2026
0 Comments
UGC, On-Camera Video Content
April 17, 2026Documentary Editor - US,......
07/05/2026
Journalists reporting on Sudan are working in one of the most complex and fast-m...
07/05/2026
Multi-year partnership positions Victory+ as a free home for Dallas Cowboys orig...
07/05/2026
From sideline reporting to directing and producing, the talented sophomore is building a well-rounded foundation for a career in live sports production
In the ...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital has received two Future Best of Show awards at NAB Show 2026. The COBALT blueCORE platform was recognized by TV Tech, and the COBALT PACIFIC ULL-...
07/05/2026
ESPN analyst Mina Kimes will host the televised semifinals and finals of the 202...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI, the global film streaming platform, has selected Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner. Bitmovin's encoding infrastru...
07/05/2026
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and the U.S. Soccer Federation have announced...
07/05/2026
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) and Victory have announced a regional broadcast partnership bringing live match coverage to fans across the greater Los Angeles...
07/05/2026
Spiideo has announced the launch of AI Highlights inside Spiideo Play, its automated sports production platform. AI Highlights combines video, event data, audio...
07/05/2026
Leostream Corporation has announced a unified remote access ecosystem for high-p...
07/05/2026
The Atlanta Dream has partnered with Victory to stream all locally broadcast Dream games for free, expanding the team's digital distribution strategy and g...
07/05/2026
Riedel Communications has announced the appointment of Marc Engroff as Chief Fin...
07/05/2026
SES and ARD, Germany's largest public broadcasting network, have announced a long-term extension of their satellite distribution partnership through 2039. U...
07/05/2026
UpLight Technologies delivers a flexible video and lighting system for a new televised sportLaunching the Pro Cheer League required more than creating a compell...
07/05/2026
Full Day Productions and GSE Worldwide have announced Spikes Under the Lights, a...
07/05/2026
Seit dem Start im Jahr 2023 hat DJ (Beta) das personalisierte H rerlebnis von 94...
07/05/2026
Da quando stata presentata nel 2023, DJ (beta) ha aiutato a definire un'esperienza d'ascolto pi personalizzata per 94 milioni di utenti Spotify Premi...
07/05/2026
Since launching in 2023, DJ (beta) has helped shape a more personalized listenin...
07/05/2026
Desde o lan amento em 2023, o DJ (beta) j ajudou a deixar a experi ncia de ouvi...
07/05/2026
From our earliest days, Spotify has been built on a simple principle: Great audio should be easy to reach. It's what's driven us to expand from music to...
07/05/2026
Asian and Pacific Islander artists continue to shape the global soundscape, pushing creative boundaries and connecting with fans worldwide. This Asian & Pacific...
07/05/2026
Company announce long-requested choir instrument
In the latest expansion of their Symphonic Elements series, UJAM have introduced an all-new vocal instrumen...
07/05/2026
Modular-inspired sound generation with digital control
Buchla have introduced Ziggy, a new compact synthesizer built around the company's complex oscill...
07/05/2026
Combines analogue voices with digital synthesis and sequencing
Polyend have announced Drums, a new hybrid analogue and digital drum machine that combines sy...
07/05/2026
Control surface now officially supports four DAWs
When Nektar launched the Panorama CS12 control surface, it worked exclusively with Apple's Logic Pro, ...
07/05/2026
In the first quarter 2026, SGL Carbon generated consolidated sales of 184.5 million, which was 49.8 million, or 21.3%, lower than in the prior year (Q1 2025: ...
07/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz and Greenerwave achieve precise and fast ESA antenna characteriz...
07/05/2026
Two multi-role L3Harris products - the Red Wolf launched effects vehicle and SK...
07/05/2026
L3Harris will be developing key features of a secure and resilient digital infra...
07/05/2026
Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital Wins Two Future Best of Show Awards at 2026 NAB Show
Manufacturer Recognized by TV Tech and TVBEurope for Innovation in signal processing
Cobal...
07/05/2026
Software and hardware platforms, AI power and user-friendliness on show...
07/05/2026
Intinor will demonstrate its latest technical enhancements for the Direkt series at BroadcastAsia 2026. With a continued focus on reliable contribution and remo...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI has chosen Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner, replacing MUBI's legacy on premises encoding setup to improve scalab...
07/05/2026
Meet Graduates from Berklees Class of 2026 Members of this years graduating class reflect on their proudest moments at Berklee and look ahead to whats next.
...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
At BroadcastAsia 2026, Interra Systems will demonstrate its latest innovations in automated quality control (QC), real-time monitoring, and captioning. The comp...
07/05/2026
At this year's Broadcast Asia, PlayBox Neo is set to unveil recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solution...
Paris 2024: NBC Olympics Technical Efforts Will Be Four Times Larger Than the Tokyo 2020 Games' A team of 3,000 will deliver content to U.S. viewers; Peacock will be major content hub for 329 events By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
