NBC Olympics

Case study – NBC News at Olympic Venues

NBC News previously used natural fibre recyled cotton insulation at the London Games 2012 and this was recyled at the Sochi Winter Games in 2014.

NBC Olympics purchased the eko 45mm acoustic panels to use in many of the video editing rooms used to produce Olympic TV features in Rio for the Summer games.

NBC worked in a prebuilt International Broadcast Center where the facilities are provided by the host broadcaster. As they have upwards of 30 editing rooms, the need to dampen these rooms acoustically against early reflections is important. The walls are also metal, so a light, thick, dense and absorbent material helps catch stray audio waveforms in these sometimes small rooms.

NBC Universal Sports & Olympics installation at Rio Olympics 2016

It is important that the material is non fibrous when used in technical equipment areas such as editing rooms because any airborne materials entering sensitive broadcast equipment would be detrimental to their operation. It also needs to go up quick and be moveable, thus the use of magnets.

As the acoustic insulation may not be shipped back it is important to NBC that there is a zero carbon footprint so having the panels made from recycled cotton and clean on the environment is very important.

The natural fibre recyled cotton insulation product made a big improvement to these editing rooms and the difference they make is huge.