Yahoo!7 pips NBC for Games gold

Telstra would not give details of its mobile Olympics program other than to confirm that take-up for its $9.95 mobile TV subscription package was 57 per cent higher than internal forecasts.

Industry estimates put its overall subscription packages at more than 30,000 with about 250,000 users said to have accessed Telstra's free Olympic content on mobile phones. A Telstra BigPond spokesman said the figures were not accurate. "I cannot say by what amounts." Yahoo!7 said it more than doubled its target of 1 million unique users to top 2.45 million. Live and on-demand video streams topped 4.7 million for the 16 days, more than quadrupling its initial target of 1 million, which was later revised to 3 million.

Yahoo!7 chief executive Rohan Lund said among the biggest trends to emerge from the Seven-Yahoo!7 Olympics tie-up was the level of "media meshing" occurring as viewers switched between TV and their computers without cannibalising the TV audience base. Mr Lund noted lower-than-expected interest in live streaming of Olympic events in favour of video-on-demand viewing after events were finished.

"Clearly a lot of people have computers in their lounge rooms," he said. "We all talk about media meshing and it was very interesting watching them go back and forward between the TV and PC at the same time. The TV audience was very responsive to on-air throws [promoting Yahoo!7 content]. We saw quite significant spikes in traffic any time there was a call-to-action on air. It wasn't like people were turning off the TV or the PC. They were using online very much as part of the on-air experience.

Mr Lund said there was less live streaming of events than he expected. "If it was live and a TV was available, people were going to TV. The secret is having the two mediums work together."

Mr Lund said that while video had proved hugely popular, there was massive interest from online users for news, information, tally counts and analysis. He said Yahoo!7's approach to delivering more options for "catch-up" video viewing was vindicated after NBC in the US admitted last week that its strategy of offering eight live online Olympics channels was a mistake.

"Video needs to be convenient," he said. "NBC has now come out and said there was not as much interest in live streaming as they expected. We broke all our video down, event by event."

He also said Yahoo!7 made about $8 million in revenue from its Olympics coverage versus $US5.75 million ($7.1 million) for NBC's online deals in the US.

Despite Mr Lund's claiming a big win for Yahoo!7's Olympics coverage online, he did not expect the online portal to be more aggressive in future bidding for sports rights.

"They're too expensive," he said. "Sporting administrators still believe there is massive, massive value in their online rights. We don't see that yet. People need to see that online can provide a unique experience and can really help extend a sport. They have to see that role for it rather than a cash cow to milk."