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In several major markets around the world, the
TV audience has fallen since 2016, as viewing becomes more
fragmented and athletes compete in Japan when audiences are
mostly asleep in the United States and Europe.
Ratings data from the opening ceremony and first few nights of
events indicate that the Tokyo Games are currently the least
watched Olympics in recent history across Europe and in the
United States. However, TV viewership is up in Australia and
Japan.
Comparisons with previous Olympic Games are imperfect given the
different times zones, the COVID pandemic and fewer streaming
options in past Games, but a downward trend is clear.
The opening ceremony last Friday drew 16.9 million U.S. TV
viewers, the smallest audience for the event in the past 33
years, according to Nielsen data provided by NBCUniversal.
That audience declined 36% from 2016, when 26.5 million people
watched the Rio de Janeiro Games opener, and 58% from 2012, when
40.7 million people watched the London ceremony.
U.S. TV viewership hit a high of 19.4 million on Sunday night
but has been downhill since then, dropping to 15.7 million on
Tuesday.
In a call with analysts on Thursday, Jeff Shell, the chief
executive officer of NBCUniversal - which paid $7.65 billion to
extend its U.S. broadcast rights for the Olympics through 2032 -
attributed record-low ratings to several factors.
“We had a little bit of bad luck, there was a drumbeat of
negativity, we got moved a year, no spectators,” Shell said.
“And that has resulted in a little bit of linear ratings being
probably less than we expected.”
As NBCUniversal and other media companies are trying to offer
more of the Games at more hours and on more platforms and
devices, viewers have had a harder time finding content they
want to watch.
NBCUniversal is airing the Games across two broadcast networks,
six cable networks, and multiple digital platforms including its
Peacock streaming service. But that scope has led to confusion:
It did not stream the opening ceremony on Peacock, for example.
And while all of Peacock’s Olympics programming is available to
stream for free, viewers need to pay for the $4.99 premium tier
to watch men’s basketball live.
“The viewing experience needs to be streamlined,” said credit
analyst Patrice Cucinello. “It’s confusing from a user
experience, to go: ‘Wait a second. Do I have to watch it on the
NBC app? Can I watch it on Peacock? When am I going to watch it?
Why can’t I watch it on demand?’ You need a simplified user
experience or people get frustrated.”
VIEWERSHIP UP IN AUSTRALIA, JAPAN
Viewership has also declined across Europe where - like the
United States - the time zone in Japan presents a challenge for
broadcasters. Over the first three days of the Games, 769,000
viewers tuned in on one of France’s three public TV channels,
not including Discovery Inc-owned broadcaster Eurosport,
according to data from audience measurement company Mediametrie.
That audience represents a 17.4% decline from the same period
during 2016’s Rio Games and a 74% decline from the 2012 London
Games.
The Olympics are being aired in Germany on two public channels -
ARD and ZDF - as well as Eurosport. The opening ceremony
attracted 2.07 million viewers on ZDF, according to ratings
compiled by research firm GfK, a 73% decline from the TV
audience that watched the opener of the Beijing Olympics that
aired at a similar time of day.
Britain's publicly owned broadcaster, the BBC, says it had a
peak live audience of 2.3 million, and 944,000 online streams,
for the opening ceremony on Friday, which started around
lunchtime UK time. That’s a 39.4% decline from the BBC’s peak
live audience for the Rio opening ceremony, and a 61% decline
from the BBC’s peak live audience for the 2008 Beijing opener.
At least two major markets saw an uptick in opening ceremony
viewers compared to previous Games. In Australia, where the
Games are being broadcast on Seven Network’s Channel 7, sister
channel 7mate and streaming service 7plus, 2.7 million viewers
watched the opening ceremony nationally on Seven Network, the
company said in a press release, up 20% from the TV audience for
the Rio opener. That audience declined on both Saturday and
Sunday evenings, by 11% and 7%, respectively, the Seven West
Media-owned company said.
In the host country of Japan, where the majority of the public
has opposed hosting the Games during the pandemic, the opening
ceremony was watched by more than 70 million people and was the
most watched event in the last 10 years, Yiannis Exarchos, CEO
of Olympic Broadcasting Services, said on Monday.
(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York; Additional reporting by
Kate Holton in London, Douglas Busvine in Berlin, and Mathieu
Rosemain in Paris; editing by Kenneth Li and Lisa Shumaker)
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