1 Olympics thing: Today in Paris

I caught up with the anchors and producers at NBC's "Today Show" while in Paris this week. While the show has seen a huge ratings bump over the past two weeks, it's the digital audience growth that makes Paris stand out from previous Games.

Why it matters: Digital used to be an afterthought for the show, said the program's longtime host Savannah Guthrie. Now, "it's an absolute priority."

• "We were trying to get Peacock (NBC's streaming services) to be a thing at the last Olympics in Tokyo. Remember how hard we tried?" said Hoda Kotb. "This is the first year we're totally free. Everything's out there. It's all available."

By the numbers: The program had 65 million and 54 million video views of Olympics content on Instagram and TikTok, respectively, during the first three days of the Games, executive producer Libby Leist said in an interview.

• It added over 140,000 new followers to its accounts on this platforms during that period.
• In addition to social, the team has zeroed in on optimizing its content for search results.
• "We really want to capitalize on what people are thinking about while they're watching in real-time," Leist said.

Zoom in: Key to "Today's" success has been its newfound focus on digital coverage of what's happening behind the scenes.

• "People are eating up the extra look at what's going on behind the scenes here," Leist said.
• The show brought dedicated social media and radio producers with it for the first time to capture that content.
• Al Roker and Craig Melvin had their croissant crawl documented. A dedicated "Hoda cam" was set up to capture Hoda Kotb's reactions to the U.S. Women's gymnastics team competitions.
• I watched as one of the biggest stars of NBC's behind-the-scenes coverage, Snoop Dogg, presented a cake on set to his partner-in-crime Martha Stewart for her 83rd birthday.

The big picture: The Olympics offers NBC News, which houses the "Today Show," a chance to draw new viewers. "We think this is a good time to sort of reintroduce ourselves to maybe people who've been looking at other channels," Kotb said.

• But for those who are loyal "Today Show" watchers, the show has been careful not to drift from its core mission of covering the news.
• Guthrie opened last Friday's show with an interview with national security adviser Jake Sullivan about the prisoner swap that saw the return of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and others return back home to the U.S.
• "The news will always lead our show, and it has led the show every single day we've been here, no matter what's happened in the Olympics," Guthrie said.