Opening Ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics to Air Live in the US

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US viewers are expected to be able to watch the opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics live. As Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of New York, all interested viewers can view the ceremonies on the 23^rd of July, 2021 on NBC at 7 a.m. EDT and 4 a.m. EDT in Los Angeles.

Schedule for the Day

The ceremonies will be followed by a special edition of the “Today Show” with reaction and athlete interviews and a three-hour daytime show previewing the next 16 days. It will mark the first time NBC will do a daytime show on the first Friday of the Games. NBC’s primetime show will then re-air the ceremony, beginning at 7:30 p.m. EDT. The last 9 months since the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics have been strictly devoted to determining the coverage plans. Currently the plan states that the number of production people devoted to the Games will remain the same, but there will be more people at NBC Sports’ Stamford, Connecticut, production headquarters, as well as in New York and other auxiliary locations, compared to the past.

Decision to Air the Opening Ceremony Live

This decision to air the live opening of the ceremony in the morning was taken as a consequence of the peculiar conditions that the world continues to endure. The gathering at Tokyo during the pandemic and the changing viewing habits of the market segments were strong influences in arriving at this decision. Molly Solomon, Executive Producer and President of NBC Olympic Productions stated, “I think like so many of us, people’s lives have changed. And after we had all been locked down for a few months, the postponed Olympics, and its meaning, I think became very clear that it will be an incredibly moving moment in sports and in the world when the world comes together.” Molly further asserted, “We recognized we had to make our production plans be equal to the challenge of these unprecedented challenging times. And that meant a live opening ceremony and an enhanced primetime broadcast where most of the folks will gather to watch it.”

Previously, NBC live streamed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, on its Olympic site before airing delayed coverage of both in the evening.