Watching the Olympics is a quadrennial global event, but with so many sports and star athletes to follow, the viewing experience can be hectic Peacock is making the viewing experience easier than ever by rolling out two new features for the 2024 Paris Olympics: Multiview and Live Action.

NBCUniversal announced the upgrade today at its annual One24 technology conference, along with other new technology and data capabilities for ad serving.

Peacock has already significantly improved its streaming coverage of the Olympic Games at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. This summer, it will be further improved with two interactive features designed to navigate more than 5,000 hours of live coverage, including all 329 medal events.

At a press briefing attended by Tom'sGuide, Peacock executive John Gerry said that the day after the Beijing Games ended, they began brainstorming ways to improve the Olympic streaming experience.

I think the biggest learning was that we had a good discovery experience. We won awards at the last Winter Games, and we heard that from our users," said Jerry, Senior Vice President of Product and User Experience. But this time we have three times that amount of content, so we had to find new ways to make it even easier. That's why we came out with something like Discovery Multiview. That's a lot of content.

"What shall we look at? So we want to provide a way for users to discover what's most interesting to them."

The multi-view feature is available on several streaming services, including YouTube TV and Apple TV Plus for MLS Season Pass. Peacock will launch two types of Multiview during the Olympics: the first is traditional Multiview, which shows up to four matches on a single screen in sports such as track and field, soccer, and wrestling.

The second is Peacock's Discovery Multiview, which shows four screens of key competitions with real-time commentary from NBCU Olympic experts. Viewers can choose from up to four Multiview options.

"We may have something from Team USA. We might have one trending event. We might have a soccer game. We have lots of options." We help guide you to the right event that's happening."

"We can help you find the right event.

The second feature Peacock is rolling out for the Olympics is Live Actions. During live coverage, viewers can choose to continue watching a live feed of a particular event, rather than continuing with the broadcast as it moves to another event.

The demo video showed a "Keep Watching" button popping up during the live broadcast of a gymnastics event. By selecting this option, the viewer can continue watching the gymnastics feed without having to move to the archery or basketball feeds.

Live Actions also allows viewers to add upcoming events to their "My Stuff" list to watch later. For example, if they are watching a swimming heat, they can add the medal match to the list.

As Jerry explains, "We offer everything you want to watch. If the competition doesn't pique your interest, you can keep going. But later on you'll say, 'Wow, I didn't know this sport existed. And now I want to keep watching it.'

This new feature allows viewers to quickly take action to "keep watching during the day and in the evening start planning the next day's viewing."

Multiview and Live Action are not all that Peacock is rolling out to improve the Olympic viewing experience.

The service is extending the Key Plays feature, which currently exists for Premier League soccer matches and NFL games, to basketball and golf.

An enhanced interactive schedule allows viewers to plan their Olympic viewing on a day-by-day basis. You can attend events live, watch replays on demand, or add events to your "My Stuff" list for later viewing. In addition, a new "Search by Star Player" feature has been added to the existing search by sport, event, and team.