NBC’s prime-time coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, will air live across the United States, including on the West Coast, a first since the Games became a major TV attraction in the late 1960s.

The move to coast-to-coast live coverage is an acknowledgment that holding back results or highlights for any part of the audience is no longer a viable option as viewers have instant access to information immediately through online platforms.

The plan is also aimed at staving off any further erosion of the Olympics TV audience. NBC’s coverage of the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro averaged 25.4 million viewers over 17 nights last summer, a massive audience, but down 18 percent from the 2012 Games in London.

Some of that loss was attributed to the growth in viewing online. Streaming of live video of Olympic action on NBC’s apps reached 2.7 billion minutes, nearly double the amount for all previous Games.

Jim Bell, president, programming for NBC Olympics, said that making the Games live coast-to-coast is a way to address evolving viewer habits while “reasserting” TV’s status as the preeminent medium for coverage.