National Broadcasting Company (NBC), which has the exclusive US media rights to the Olympics through 2012, is providing unprecedented coverage of the Beijing Games.

"With our prime time coverage on NBC, and our other coverage on NBC, as well as on a variety of our other networks in the NBC Universal family, plus 2,900 hours online on NBCOlympics.com, 2,200 of which is live streaming video from the Olympics, plus the availability of video on wireless technologies, it's clearly the biggest Olympic, or any other kind of sports media project in history," Greg Hughes, a spokesman for NBC Sports, told Xinhua.

In all, NBC will present an unprecedented 3,600 hours of Beijing Olympics Games coverage, 75 percent of which will be live.

There are seven networks under the NBC Universal unbrella: NBC, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen, Telemundo (Spanish-language channel) and Universal HD.

"Every sport is going to be available in virtually any form that somebody wants watch it, and in most cases, live," said Hughes.

NBC has decided to move up the delayed broadcast of the August 8 opening ceremony of the Beijing Games by a half a hour after reviewing the gala's rehearsal, from 8:00 PM Eastern Time to 7:30.

"We move it up to 7:30 because it's going to be spectacular," Hughes said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 8, 2008)