NBC's Live-Streaming Viewership Takes Off Around Olympics

 Sports remain as a haven for live audiences, and this year's tentpole events (so far) have lent even more to that point. For the Olympics, NBC's reporting streaming audiences alone have tripled versus the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. Even if linear TV's not moving much, the streaming increase shows just how much this event can still draw in eyeballs on any device. Are we heading toward a future where the majority of live sporting event viewers are streamers? Maybe... but in the meantime, the growth we're seeing around the Super Bowl and Olympics create some major live video momentum.Your weekly live video news round-up is below. Feel like we missed anything? Drop us a line.NBC Triples Live-Streaming Olympics Viewership From 2014 [MediaPost]Specifically, NBC says that in the first five days of the winter games, viewers watched more than 1.31 billion live-streaming video minutes on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports mobile app. That number will only increase in the days leading up to the closing ceremony -- and it's already more than three times as many minutes as viewers consumed during the entire 2014 games in Sochi, Russia, when the company streamed 420 million video minutes.Vimeo wants to power Facebook, Twitch and YouTube livestreams [Engadget]Publish to Social also comes with stats and a performance dashboard, so creators can see at a glance how their videos are performing across platforms. Both features are available to members of specific Vimeo payment plans, and more social platforms are slated to be added soon.How to Create an Effective Digital Video Campaign That Actually Converts Customers [Adweek]Kyle Curtis, group creative director at R&R Partners, confirmed, “I like to think of the first two or three seconds of my online videos like billboards on a freeway. I assume people are going to pass right on by with their thumb scroll, just like they would a billboard in their car. So, what message can I deliver in that time, and how in that brief moment can I make people want to see more?”Fox News is creating its own streaming service called Fox Nation [The Verge]Fox Nation won’t feature current FNC programming. It won’t even have reruns, according to The New York Times. The platform “will take a deep dive into the big issues of the day with live exclusive daily streaming content and long-form programming available only to subscribers,” says the company. Users will also be able to stream “exclusive events” and over 20 years worth of archival Fox News Channel content “not available anywhere else.”Vox Media Fires About 50 Employees, Scales Back on Social Video [WSJ]The cuts, which primarily affect social video teams at the company’s sites including Racked, Curbed and SB Nation, amount to about 5% of Vox Media’s total staff. An additional 12 people will be offered role changes. The layoffs were prompted by the realization that social video initiatives won’t be “viable audience or revenue growth drivers” relative to other investments, given industry changes over the past few months and the company’s own budgeting process, Vox Media Chief Executive Jim Bankoff wrote in a memo to employees on Wednesday.YouTube and Amazon are Fighting for Sports Streaming Supremacy [Yahoo Finance]The menu for over-the-top sports content is rapidly expanding. Dish Network’s Sling TV offers packages with an array of NBA and college basketball games thanks to deals with NBC and Fox regional sports networks (which are all soon to become Disney-owned), and has regular-season MLB games thanks to deals with about 20 of the 30 teams. (Sling does not have CBS.) AT&T DirecTV Now has ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and FS1, ESPN and ESPN2, and the Turner channels, but NBA TV, which YouTube TV just added, is only in its more premium package.SKIM THISVideo Briefing: Facebook Watch is not a TV network of the future [Digiday]NBA’s Adam Silver Focused On Tech That Creates Magical Experiences [SportTechie]Video Briefing: Amazon will soon distribute ad-supported streaming channels [Digiday]Blizzard is streaming a puppy version of Overwatch on Twitch [VentureBeat]Why Video Content is Something Brands Shouldn’t Ignore [Footwear News]