Web Video By jamielendino on August 8, 2008 9:02 AM

Nielsen Mobile: Olympics To Draw Big Mobile Audience

The 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies are today, and according to new data from Nielsen Mobile, about 45% of U.S. mobile video users and 31% of U.K. cell phone viewers will tune in for the Olympic Games, MediaPost reports. Nielsen Mobile is calling it a watershed moment for mobile media, and we’re inclined to agree—nothing has gotten quite the publicity on mobile that this has to date.

“In general, the event-driven and around-the-clock nature of the Olympics make the next few weeks a really important testing ground for the state of mobile media,” said Nicholas Covey, director of insights for Nielsen Mobile, in the report.

NBC is leading mobile Olympics coverage with a range of offerings—although, strangely, there’s no mention of this on NBC’s mobile home page or on the NBC Mobile site. Instead, for the lowdown, go to www.nbcolympics.com/mobile on your desktop computer, or text OLYMPICS to 51515 with your cell phone. The actual mobile Web portal, accessible by cell phones, is at mobile.nbcolympics.com. More after the jump.

AT&T Wireless also has NBC Olympics 2Go, a mobile TV channel with live event coverage from NBC, the USA Network, MSNBC and CNBC. And NBC is distributing Olympics content through Helio, Verizon Wireless, Alltel, T-Mobile, and MobiTV.

Certain events particularly lend themselves to mobile viewing. “Consumers are especially looking forward to the high-profile, short events such as track and field and gymnastics on their phone,” said Kanishka Agarwal, vice president of mobile media at Nielsen Mobile, in a statement. “Longer team sports, such as soccer and volleyball, are less conducive to mobile viewing, but mobile users will still follow the scores closely on their devices.”