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.
