NBC To Stream Closing Ceremony Live

NBC has received a lot of criticism over the last few weeks for how they’ve handled the 2012 London Olympics. The network did not stream the opening ceremony live but announced this morning that they would be streaming the closing ceremony live online.

According to the Washington Post, NBC has streamed several sporting events live online but decided to use tape delays during it’s prime time broadcast. The network was surprised to see that livestreaming did not take away from its prime time audience, which according to NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus, influenced the network’s decision to put the closing ceremony online.

Lazarus said:

“Going into the opening ceremony, we didn’t have a sense for what our ratings would be and what streaming would or wouldn’t do to our broadcasts… But we think we’ve learned enough and have promised to innovate and continually evolve our broadcast coverage.”

According to the LA Times, NBC’s primetime audience was bigger this year during the 2012 London Olympics than it was during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The closing ceremony, which will include a Spice Girls reunion, are scheduled to start at 1 p.m. PDT.