As a hardcore gamer and sports enthusiast with a deep appreciation for the Olympics, I’m absolutely thrilled by the incredible viewership numbers NBCUniversal is reporting for the 2024 Paris Games. With my eyes glued to multiple screens, I’ve been living and breathing every moment of these competitions, whether it be through linear broadcasts or streaming on Peacock.
The opening weekend of the 2024 Olympics has NBCUniversal saying “Vive la France.”
Over the past three full days of these games, I’ve been glued to NBCU’s coverage across all their linear networks and digital platforms. So far, they’re averaging an impressive 34.5 million viewers for their primary broadcasts. This number takes into account what they call “Paris Prime,” which is the 2-5 p.m. ET timeframe in the U.S., where live medal events are aired, as well as the U.S. primetime telecasts.
The opening ceremony attracted a massive audience of 28.6 million viewers on Friday. However, the viewership numbers grew even more impressive over the weekend. On Saturday, a total of 32.4 million people watched. The following day, during which Simone Biles and the U.S. women’s gymnastics team made their debut, an astounding 41.5 million viewers tuned in. (Based on Nielsen’s fast national ratings for linear broadcasts and Adobe Analytics for streaming and digital.)
On average, there were 34.5 million viewers during the first three days of this summer’s games, marking a significant increase of 79% compared to the 19.3 million viewers during the same timeframe at the Summer Olympics held in Tokyo three years prior.
As a fan looking back at past Summer Olympics, I have to acknowledge that comparing the Paris Games to recent ones isn’t an apples-to-apples situation. Nielsen didn’t account for out-of-home viewing in their daily ratings until 2020, and NBCUniversal’s streaming presence was significantly less robust back then. Despite these differences, I’m impressed with how the Paris Games are measuring up against the 2016 (averaging 27.27 million viewers over the first three days) and 2012 Olympics (with a viewership of 35.13 million).
On Sundays, Peacock and NBCU’s other digital channels drew in approximately 6 million viewers each. The weekends of Saturday and Sunday ranked as the second and third most-watched periods in Peacock’s history, surpassed only by the day it broadcast an NFL playoff game back in January.
From Sunday up to the pre-opening ceremony competitions, Peacock and NBCU’s digital platforms have accumulated a total of 4.5 billion minutes streamed. This surpasses the previous record of 4.48 billion minutes from the entire Tokyo Olympics.
1. According to NBC Sports, the U.S. men’s basketball team’s opening game, which resulted in a 110-84 victory over Serbia, attracted 10.9 million viewers on both NBC and Peacock. This figure surpassed the viewership of the gold medal match (9.3 million) during the Tokyo games. Moreover, the U.S. women’s soccer team’s 4-1 win against Germany garnered an average of 4.2 million viewers across USA Network and Peacock. Notably, this number surpassed the viewership of every single soccer match (both men’s and women’s) during the previous two summer games.
Read More
Sorry. No data so far.
2024-07-30 00:55