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It seems that the U.S.-based, NBC network has chosen not to show the London Olympic Game Opening ceremony live, while Canada CTV, and of course United Kingdom NBC were offering live coverage to their viewers.

When Friday’s opening ceremony kicked off in London at 9 p.m. London time (4 p.m. EST) NBC chose to wait until Eastern and Western prime time television (7:30 p.m.) to show the ceremony. This was a three and a half hour delay for the East Coast viewers and six and a half for the West Coast viewers.

President of NBC said that the opening ceremony is not a sporting event where scores are difficult to be kept secret, but rather an event that should be enjoyed by family and friends gathered together to watch TV in prime-time hours. “We are live streaming every sporting event, all 32 sports and 302 medals,” said Gary Zenkel. He also added, “It was never our intent to live stream the Opening Ceremony or Closing Ceremony.”

While there was no way of seeing the Olympic Games ceremony live on NBC it seemed that some were finding creative ways to see the opening online,  but not without controversy. It seems that a few illegal streams were available, but found and shut down within minutes.

While the viewers could get around such illegal streams to watch the opening ceremony, such streams had their share of difficulties and issues such as overload of ads or having to download software not always for free. 

While some viewers might have chosen to go the extra mile to watch the London Olympic Games opening ceremony few hours earlier, most viewers, might have opted for the easier NBC delayed event, watching the ceremony on their TV set.

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