MSNBC, CNBC & BRAVO TO CARRY 2012 LONDON OLYMPICS COVERAGE
MSNBC to Offer Wide Variety of Olympic Programming
Bravo to Televise Olympic Tennis; CNBC to be Home of Boxing
NEW YORK - May 16 - Fully-distributed NBCUniversal cable channels MSNBC, CNBC and Bravo will again serve as Olympic platforms when they combine to televise 284.5 hours of coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Games this summer.
MSNBC will host 155.5 hours of a wide variety of Olympic sports, CNBC will carry 73 hours of Olympic boxing coverage -- including the debut of women's Olympic boxing -- and Bravo will serve as the home of Olympic tennis with 56 hours of coverage. All three channels have previously televised Olympic programming.
MSNBC's, CNBC's and Bravo's Olympic coverage will complement the programming airing on NBC and the NBC Sports Network, the details of which will be released shortly. It has already been announced that Telemundo will provide the most extensive Spanish-language Olympics coverage in NBCUniversal history by offering more than 173 hours of programming, and that NBCOlympics.com will live stream every event and sport for the first time ever, more than 3,500 hours. The vast majority of live streaming on NBCOlympics.com will only be available to authenticated cable, satellite or telco customers.
MSNBC
MSNBC, NBCUniversal's 24/7 cable news channel that is fully distributed in roughly 100 million homes, will carry 155.5 hours of a wide variety of long-form Olympic programming over 19 days. The channel will air up to 18 medal rounds and 20 Olympic sports, from badminton to basketball to soccer to wrestling.
NBCUniversal's 2012 London Olympic coverage begins on MSNBC on Wednesday, July 25 - two days before the Opening Ceremony -- when Great Britain faces New Zealand in women's soccer, the first official competition of the Games, live from Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Coverage begins at 10:30 a.m. ET/7:30 a.m. PT.
The channel will also carry soccer qualifying on Thursday, July 26, but there will be no coverage on July 27 as there are no events scheduled on the same day as the Opening Ceremony. Coverage will conclude on MSNBC on August 12, the final day of competition.
On most weekdays, coverage will air from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. ET. There will be longer programming windows on Saturdays and Sundays.
Longtime Golf Channel commentator Kelly Tilghman will serve as MSNBC's Olympic host, with London being her first-ever Olympic assignment. MSNBC has aired Olympic coverage for every Summer Games since the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
CNBC
CNBC -- NBCUniversal's fully distributed cable business channel -- will serve as the home of Olympic boxing this summer, including the debut of women's boxing. The channel will televise 73 hours of boxing coverage over 16 days -- every day from July 28-August 12 -- from elimination bouts to the men's and women's finals. Same-day coverage will air from 5-8 p.m. ET during the week, with six hours of live coverage airing each day on the weekends. This marks the fourth consecutive Summer Games that CNBC has featured Olympic boxing.
Fred Roggin, the longtime lead sports anchor at NBC's owned-and-operated station in Los Angeles, KNBC, will reprise his Beijing role as Olympic boxing host. This will be his seventh Olympics working for NBC and fourth working on Olympic boxing in some capacity.
BRAVO
Bravo, NBCUniversal's fully distributed lifestyle cable channel, will act as the home of Olympic tennis this summer. The channel will televise 56 hours of long-form tennis coverage over seven days, from July 28-August 3. Live coverage will air from early morning until mid-afternoon (ET) on most days.
Pat O'Brien, a veteran of five Olympic Games as a commentator, will serve as host. London will be O'Brien's fourth Olympics for NBC and sixth overall. He last worked for NBCUniversal at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the same year Bravo last carried Olympic competition.
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