Digital fuels increase in Olympic viewing

More and more people are turning to digital devices to get their Olympics fix, the latest figures reveal.

Total broadcast time from the Rio Games will hit about 350,000 hours, well above the 200,000 hours during the London Olympics in 2012.

Traditional television will account for about 125,000 hours, with the rest screening on digital platforms.

"We do expect around half of the world's population will have consumed the Games on some media platform," International Olympic Committee director of television and marketing Timo Lumme said on Wednesday.

"We've moved on from a situation where the digital coverage might have been a second screen to where it may be the first screen, particularly with the advent of apps that can be easily accessed."

In the US, streaming of NBC's coverage has so far exceeded two billion minutes, more than the network's entire streaming across the five previous Olympics (summer and winter).

In Australia, the Seven Network has so far streamed 23.5 million minutes compared with 5.4 million minutes for the whole of the London Games.