Most comprehensive Olympic coverage

The multiplatform digital coverage of London 2012 meant that these Games were the most comprehensively covered Olympics in history. A total of 5,535 hours of coverage from London was available from NBC (USA) across NBC (NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo and NBCOlympics.com) while BBC Sports (UK) broadcast 2,500 hours of coverage on television and online – including up to 24 high-definition live streams, and web pages for every athlete, country, sport and venue. In China, CCTV served 610 million streams to iPads, smartphones and connected devices alone. In the USA, NBC delivered 159 million views (compared with the BBC's 106 million). The 2012 Olympics were also the most watched event on US television, according to Nielsen, who calculated that 219.4 million Americans tuned in.

Despite their extensive coverage, NBC was slated for holding back the most popular events for their primetime audiences, drawing brand-damaging criticism including from a Twitter account created specifically to mock and complain to the broadcaster. The decision to delay the bigger events was attributed to the high cost of acquiring the rights, as well as the time difference between the UK and the USA.