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Published on Wednesday, 25 July 2012 20:41
WMAQ-TV/NBC 5 Chicago announced their plans for the station's own coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games, above and beyond that of the national coverage. The station be adding five additional hours of weekday local news and 13 half-hours of Chicago-only "Olympic Zone" programs.
WMAQ-TV reporters Lauren Jiggetts and Phil Rogers are already in London, England in advance of the games' official kick off. They will be offering live reports to all of the NBC 5 newscasts -- morning, afternoon and late evening -- throughout the 17 day event.
NBC-TV will be airing Olympic coverage from 9:00am-4:00pm during the games. Starting this coming Monday, July 30th, WMAQ-TV will air special 4:00pm newscasts, immediately after the daytime national coverage, anchored by Marion Brooks and Rob Elgas. This will moves the 4:30pm newscast 30 minutes earlier, and expanding the newscast to a full 60 minutes. The 4:00pm airings of the syndicated show "Extra" will be preempted during the Olympics.
Also starting Monday, WMAQ-TV will preempt their normal 6:30pm airing of the syndicated "Access Hollwood" to instead air "Olympic Zone." This new 30 minute show will air Monday through Saturday, focusing on local athletes participating in the London games and Olympic stories with local interest. Monday through Friday, the show will be hosted by meteorologist Alicia Roman, while Saturday's show will be hosted by meteorologist Cheryl Scott. Each show will also feature NBC-TV's Bob Costas, who will provide a preview of NBC-TV's primetime Olympic coverage for that night.
In addition to the television coverage, WMAQ-TV's website,
NBCChicago.com, wishes to be the "go-to resource" for those looking to keep up with Chicagoland athletes in the 2012 Olympics. The website has a new section dedicated to daily coverage of local Olympic athletes, information on events, updated results, and more. The website will also have a new feature for those who wish to sign up for it, which will send out a customizable Olympics email newsletter containing the latest news about the overseas local athletes and the day's biggest stories from the London event.
Larry Wert, President and General Manager of NBC 5 Chicago, said in a statement this week: "NBC 5 is ready to bring London to Chicago. We are expanding news, bringing back our 'Olympic Zone Show' and have our team in place in London. We will be the local source for the Olympics and we are prepared to keep our viewers updated on all platforms."
NBC-TV is planning on providing well over 5,500 hours of coverage for the 2012 London Olympics, surpassing the coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics by nearly 2,000 hours. This will be done across many of the networks owned by NBCUniversal, including NBC, NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, two specialty channels, and the NBC-owned website NBCOlympics.com.
