NBC’s Mike Tirico began Friday’s Winter Olympics opening ceremony by saying, “A little over six months ago in Tokyo, we said we were about to embark on an Olympics. Olympic like no other. Now we are about to surpass that.
In the case of ratings, however, exceeding that means producing record highs.
In the first four nights of competition, NBC is on course for the lowest-rated Winter Games in history. Friday night coverage on NBC, USA Network and Peacock averaged 12.8 million viewers, down significantly from Pyeongchang’s average of 27.8 million four years ago.
Thursday night’s audience of 8 million marks the smallest Olympic prime-time viewership ever, surpassing the 9 million who tuned in to the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Games.
NBC saw a steady increase in viewership on Saturday and Sunday night, but ratings were more than halved compared to Pyeongchang. Saturday’s preliminary figures show 13.6 million and Sunday’s 13.7 million.
The numbers are raw but not a surprise. The strained relations between the United States and China due to economic and human rights problems, more Olympics held during the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of buzz in the run-up to the Games were important factors.
“There’s a whole range of subliminal factors that are negative when it comes to an event in China,” said Neal Pilson, the former president of CBS Sports who now runs his own sports television consultancy. “It only adds to the obvious problems, and it leads to the American public not being as interested in the Games this year.”
The 2018 Pyeongchang Games marked the first time since 2006 that no single night averaged at least 30 million viewers. Last year’s Tokyo Olympics averaged more than 20 million people on just one of 17 nights and produced the nine smallest prime-time audiences for the Summer Games since 1992.
Tokyo also marked the first time that the previous Winter Games had attracted a higher audience on average. Beijing also marks the first time since 1992 that two Olympics have been held just six months apart.
“The sky is definitely not falling. Yes, we encountered a bunch of bad factors that made it harder for us. But more importantly, we had a realistic view of the audiences we were going to deliver, and we’re delivering what we promised to the marketing community,” said NBCUniversal Television President Mark Lazarus. “But our trendline is pretty good. Our grades have gone up over the past three days. We feel America is finding the Olympics.”
Tokyo’s prime-time viewership is down 47% from Rio de Janeiro in 2016. If NBC can hold that decline in the same range when measuring audience four years ago, they should consider this a victory.
But even if the numbers look grim, all is not disastrous at NBC. Primetime coverage remains the most-watched event on network television and won all four nights significantly. And comparing 2018 to 2022, none of the shows popular four years ago that are still on the air have a wider audience.
The Oscars are another example of how many TV ratings have cratered. The awards show averaged 43.7 million viewers in 2014, fell to 23.6 million four years later and averaged just 10.6 million last year.
NBC is expected to be the top network during the 17 nights of the Beijing Games, which benefits advertisers.
“The ability to attract such a massive audience over a 17-18 day period is incredibly powerful,” NBC Sports President Pete Bevacqua said by phone from Beijing. “I think anyone in our business would love to be in that position to have those powers of the Olympics. He still has the ability to really bring an audience together like nothing else can.
In a statement Monday evening, NBC said that although the average number of ads aired was 33% lower than other broadcast networks, Olympics coverage generated 241% more views than the second broadcast. more watched.
While viewers are down, streaming continues to see massive increases. The first four days exceeded one billion minutes of streaming, marking the fastest pace ever recorded for a Winter Games. That puts NBC and Peacock on pace to surpass Pyeongchang’s total of 2.17 billion minutes by the end of this week.
The record for all Olympics was 4.48 billion minutes since the Tokyo Games. The 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia totaled 420 million minutes.
Peacock became the centralized location for all of NBC’s Olympic coverage, with easier navigation on the streaming platform.
“I think we’ve improved it exponentially from where we were with Tokyo,” Bevacqua said. “It took time, and there were things we had to put in place to be able to put ourselves in this position.”
NBC also hopes the next three Olympics can help audiences bounce back. The 2024 Summer Games will take place in Paris, followed by Milan-Cortina (winter 2026) and Los Angeles (summer 2028).
While some criticized NBC for broadcasting from Beijing, the host city was left undefined in 2014 when the network struck a $7.75 billion deal with the International Olympic Committee for rights through 2032. Lazarus pointed out that the other finalist was Almaty in Kazakhstan, a country. which has its own record of human rights abuses and was in the midst of a major internal conflict.
“When a marketer or a fan watches the TV shows, he is not supporting China or any political program from China,” he said. “They support American athletes.”
___
More from AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Comments are closed.