But there are downsides to this year’s Olympics coverage.
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Olympics cable ratings haven’t been as big a boon for NBC as they were with the London Games in 2012. Prior to Monday night, Rio was pacing far lower than the London Olympic.
The network led with an average of 15.3 million viewers, followed by ABC with 4.1 million. “We’ve also been pleasantly surprised that our multi-platform strategy is paying big dividends”.
That’s up from the 20.7 million viewers the network brought in on Saturday and the 26.5 million that the games’ opening ceremony – usually a huge draw – nabbed on Friday.
Thanks to Katie Ledecky, Michael Phelps and the American women’s gymnastics team, Sunday was a bounce-back night for NBC in ratings for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. In addition, the telecast, which featured six USA swimming medals, Michael Phelps’ clash with South Africa’s Chad le Clos in the 200m fly semifinal, and the American tandem of Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross in beach volleyball, averaged 28.9 million viewers.
But NBC is adding the viewership for prime-time telecasts on cable’s NBCSN (1.6 million) and Bravo (720,000) and people who streamed video online (about 300,000) to boost the number to 31.5 million its “total audience delivery”.
For the third consecutive day, NBC Olympics digital platforms had their best day ever, with 13.7 million unique users on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app on Monday (up 47% from ’12).
Via the integrated X1 Sports app, customers can search and explore the latest medal counts, live results, and real-time stats for events, as well as browse all live and streaming programming schedules, select the specific event live stream they would like to view, and watch the latest highlights of their favorite events and athletes on demand.
The Rio Games were also up among adults 18-49, averaging a 8.5 rating among adults 18-49.
Still, the broadcasting company sold $1.2 billion in ads ahead of the Games.
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