NBCUniversal Will Unplug The Olympic Channel After Five-Year Linear TV Run

deadline.com:

The Olympic Channel, which NBCUniversal launched five years ago as a destination for its Olympic programming, is going dark on September 30.“In order to best reach our target audiences, we are reevaluating our programming distribution strategy regarding the content that currently airs on Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA with our partners at the IOC and USOPC,” an NBC Sports spokesperson said in a statement. “We will be announcing our exciting new plans for Olympic content in the fall.”When it launched in 2017, the Olympic Channel rebranded NBCU’s Universal HD channel.

It was a partnership between the media company and the international and U.S. Olympic committees. While it dipped a toe into live Olympic coverage with the Tokyo Games in 2021, mostly the network aired older contests or shows about Olympic athletes.NBCU controls the U.S.

media rights of the Olympics through 2032 and the Games have been a key strategic pillar for the company over the past three decades.The demise of the Olympic Channel follows that of the NBC Sports Network in 2021.

Programming from NBCSN was mostly rerouted to USA Network and streaming service Peacock. Since its launch in 2020, Peacock has been upping its sports quotient and carried both the Winter Olympics in Beijing as well as the Super Bowl last February.