Beijing 2022: NBC Olympics' Molly Solomon on the Latest Production Enhancements in Beijing and Stamford Commentary from Stamford offers unexpected advantages By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Wednesday, February 16, 2022 - 12:04 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With 2,800 hours of Olympics coverage, 203 HD feeds coming from China to NBC Sports headquarters, and another 101 feeds going back to the IBC (International Broadcast Centre) and venues in Beijing, NBC's 2022 Winter Olympics operation is among the largest multi-continent productions in history. Add the closed loop of Beijing's safety protocols and NBC's largest at-home production presence in Stamford, and it becomes clear just how challenging the 2022 Beijing Winter Games are for the Peacock's production team.
Last week, NBC Olympics Executive Producer Molly Solomon shared some of her thoughts about how NBC has confronted these unprecedented challenges, how the network's coverage has gone thus far, some key technological innovations, and how the operation in Stamford is rolling along.
On confronting the unprecedented production and operational challenges presented by the 2022 Beijing Winter Games:
I really believe we've met the challenges of, as what [has been] a truly unprecedented Beijing Games in every way we can. We've kept our commitment to produce storylines that document all of the triumphs and setbacks of Team USA and other key aspects of the Games, and we did not shy away from our responsibility to place these Games in the proper geopolitical context as evidenced by our strong analysis during the Opening Ceremonies.
We did that without diminishing the athletes' moments and the spectacle of that beautiful ceremony. For today, it's incredibly easy for me to share with you how proud we are of the presentation thus far. There have been some fierce headwinds for these Olympics, but it has really only inspired our NBC Olympics team, and we can't wait for these Games and this work to continue.
We have 1,600 people working here in Stamford, and our NBC Sports headquarters feels a lot like an International Broadcast Center in an Olympic city. With the Olympic city of Beijing being 13 hours ahead, day is night here and night is day here. We also have 600 teammates based in Beijing - production, engineering, and operations - and many of those people are taking on multiple jobs, playing out of position to help us pull off these 2,800 hours of competition.
Our reporters frankly have taken on even more responsibility because they are our eyes and ears for our production, and many of them are doing double duty.
The complexity of what we're doing is also kind of mindboggling as we toggle back and forth across 6,800 miles. Here are some stats for you: we have 203 HD feeds coming from China to our NBC Sports headquarters, and we've got 101 feeds going back to our IBC and our venues in China.
How about this one: the figure-skating announcers and pictures travel under the Pacific Ocean three times to get on the air; that's 20,000 miles in .7 second. An extraordinary job by our engineering and operations team.
Everything is really, really coming together, and I just so admire and respect this production team.
On new and improved production elements and technology in NBC's coverage this year:
We have the most production technology we've ever had in a Winter Olympics, and I think it's helping the viewers better understand the sports that they don't know so much about.
We have the jump-height meter [for the halfpipe coverage], and that actually is coming from Germany into our Beijing truck in real time. There's a speedometer on alpine skiing for the speed events. [Since Nathan Chen's performance last week], we've added four super-slo-mo cameras, one in each of the corners in figure skating to help you better understand the incredible quadruple jumps that both the men and the women are performing.
OMEGA is powering next-gen stats related to height at events like the halfpipe.
On how the at-home production operation in Stamford is going:
We are keeping Beijing hours. We do a 5 p.m. ET production meeting with our folks in Beijing, so imagine they're getting up really early. We're coming in at midday, and then we're on from approximately 8:00 p.m. ET to 2:00, 2:30 in the morning ET. Then we regroup until about 5:00 in the morning, and they continue in Beijing, which is great.
One of nine control rooms (five in the building and four production trucks) at NBC Sports HQ in Stamford, CT
As news breaks and the night events in Beijing happen, changes and alterations [are made] to our primetime format. While our team goes home to sleep for a couple of hours and comes back midday, we exchange notes and literally hand off from Beijing to East Coast time. It's a crazy schedule, but it's the Olympics. It's what we expect, and we love to do it.
On how the live feeds and production elements offered by OBS have helped enhance NBC's coverage:
It's such a closely affiliated relationship with the Olympic Broadcasting Service, and we depend on them even more during a pandemic. We've worked really closely with them, and they're providing pictures at a number of our venues. [Given the severity and steepness of [Alpine] hill, they're doing a remarkable job covering the Alpine venue with the rail cams.
The use of multi-camera replays has increased to 10 systems from only 4 in PyeongChang.
Have you seen the aerial of the extreme-sports venues? In the distance [is] the moguls field for what they're saying is the best halfpipe ever. I think it has been extraordinary coverage. Imagine that OBS is experiencing the same thing that NBC is, trying to get folks into the country in the middle of a pandemic. So
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Beijing 2022: NBC Olympics' Molly Solomon on the Latest Production Enhancements in Beijing and Stamford Commentary from Stamford offers unexpected advantages By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
