NBC will air the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Opening Ceremony live, the network announced Wednesday, marking the first time it will do so in the morning.
The morning broadcast comes as part of “unprecedented daylong network coverage” for the opening day of the Games, which will take place on Friday, July 23.
The opening ceremonies will begin at 8 p.m. local time in Tokyo, which is 7 a.m. Eastern time in the United States, so the broadcast coverage will kick off at 6:55 a.m. ET.
In previous Olympic Games, NBC has aired the Opening Ceremony on tape-delay, often followed by heavy criticism.
“Following the unprecedented challenges presented by the global pandemic, the world will come together in Tokyo for what could be the most meaningful and anticipated Opening Ceremony ever,” Pete Bevacqua, Chairman, NBC Sports Group, said in a press release. “Given the magnitude of this event, we want to provide viewers with as many ways to connect to it as possible, live or in primetime.”
Following the opening ceremonies, NBC will feature a special two-hour TODAY show including Opening Ceremony reaction and athlete interviews, and then there will be NBC’s first-ever Olympic daytime show on an opening Friday of the Games.
In total, NBC will have 18 hours of Olympic programming in a 22-hour span to kick off the Games.
“We are delighted to offer live coverage of the Opening Ceremony for those who want immediacy, and, later in the day, build on NBC Olympics’ terrific primetime legacy with a full celebration of these much anticipated Tokyo Olympics, complete with expert analysis and enhanced coverage of Team USA,” said Molly Solomon, Executive Producer and President, NBC Olympics Production.
Similar to the Beijing Games in 2008, having the local timezone being essentially opposite “primetime” in the U.S. creates a conundrum for swimming, which almost always follows the morning prelims/evening finals routine.
Like Beijing, Tokyo will favor the broadcast coverage, with finals being contested in the morning locally. This was first speculated in 2017, and was confirmed in 2018.