Susie: Hi and welcome to Pixels and Points, our Redroc Review. I’m Susie Brown, the media buyer planner here at Redroc, handling all things traditional. With me is Matt Nelsen, our media director, digital expert, and we have a special guest, Heather Lonsdale from KXAN, the local NBC affiliate here in Austin.

Matt: Today we’re discussing the Olympics, especially since it’s the opening ceremony. It’s a great topic to dive into with Heather, who can share insights on the sales side of things.

Susie: To start, I wanted to bring up an article about Peacock and streaming, which will be a major story this Olympics. This is the first time Peacock, which is four years old, will be fully live for the Olympics. There are no time zone issues or COVID delays this year. Heather, what can you tell us about how Peacock is performing?

Heather: Peacock has grown significantly, gaining more subscribers and pushing a lot of content. For the Paris Olympics, we had only a few packages available for sale on a local level, and they went quickly. The network kept the rest for themselves, but Peacock has made a significant investment and has big plans.

Susie: One takeaway from the article is that 60% of people are more likely to stream the Olympics, compared to 47% using traditional TV. However, traditional TV viewership for trials has increased by 35% compared to the last Olympics, indicating strong overall interest.

Matt: I noticed my wife was watching the opening ceremonies on Peacock and we almost canceled our subscription. But with the Olympics, we’re holding on to it. It was impressive to see the boats and the excitement, even with the rain.

Heather: Yes, there’s a lot of excitement for these Games. Peacock’s performance is strong, and TV viewership is high. The opening ceremonies in Paris, with boats carrying each country down the Seine, were spectacular.

Susie: The article also mentioned Peacock’s strategy with sports and streaming. They had a wild card game earlier this year, which brought in three million new subscribers, and they retained 71% of those subscribers for seven weeks after the game. It’s a pretty good strategy.

Heather: Absolutely. Live sports and live news are where a lot of TV viewership is these days. Whether it’s streaming or traditional TV, it’s the gold standard.

Matt: From a sales perspective, how is the Olympics shaping up for you this year?

Heather: It’s going great. We’ve exceeded our budget, and viewership for the trials has been up 35%. We’re expecting strong numbers for the actual Games, and there’s a lot of excitement and pride in the community.

Susie: And from a branding perspective, we want to tie into that feeling and message. We don’t always have the biggest budgets, but we like to get creative around the Olympics.

Matt: We’ve been working on some new and exciting things for our clients, including integrating Olympic content with local news. Can you talk about this?

Heather: We’ve tailored a new feature this year, where we provide a 7-day weather forecast for Paris, similar to what we do for Austin. We have a reporter, John Washington, who is over there reporting live, which adds a nice touch for people wanting to know about the weather in Paris.

Susie: That’s fantastic! It’s a fun way to create excitement around the Olympics, and it gives us a nice brand lift.

Matt: Absolutely. And how are you planning to retain the audience that comes from Peacock and traditional TV during the Olympics? Do you have any upcoming programming or strategies to keep people engaged?

Heather: We’re working on ways to keep the audience engaged beyond the Olympics. We’re looking at various programming options to retain viewership and continue building on the momentum from the games.

Susie: That sounds great. Thanks, everyone, for the insightful discussion.