“Our ratings consumption is meetings our expectations”, says NBC’s Lazarus.
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Yes, linear broadcast still dominates the games viewing – although, through Day 5, it was actually down versus the last Olympics.
But the 18- to 34- prime-time viewership for NBC broadcast-only was down by about 30% versus London.
An average of 30.3 million people have watched NBC’s television networks and digital platforms during prime time on each of the first five days of competition, according to Nielsen data provided by the network.
NBC has been adding up broadcast network, cable and digital viewership to present what it calls “total audience delivery” for nightly Rio coverage.
With the US women’s gymnastics team off for the night and Michael Phelps swimming only a semifinal, NBC’s coverage of the Rio Games took a hit Wednesday. On the NBC broadcast network alone – which does not include cable or online viewing – NBC has recorded between 20.6 million and 33.4 million viewers.
NBC and news outlets send alerts on mobile phones with results from major events, one factor that might be discouraging viewership, said Marc Ganis, president of SportsCorp, a sports business consulting firm.
In this poll, we’re asking you two very simple questions: “Do you prefer the Summer or Winter Olympics?” and “Which is your favorite Summer Olympic sport to watch?” It is renowned for its unsurpassed Olympic heritage, award-winning production, and ability to aggregate the largest audiences in US television history.
In total, NBC will offer an eye-popping 4,500 hours of Olympics coverage online.
Further, digital viewing is being boosted through social media – not just organically but also via original content that NBC itself is creating with BuzzFeed and Snapchat. After all, such blasphemy would disrespect the all-powerful titan of Olympic TV: Network primetime coverage, which lorded above all else in with its huge audiences and the ad dollars that followed those viewer eyeballs.
And advertisers are also enjoying a sort of halo effect: According to Nielsen’s TV Brand Effect, commercials that ran inside Games coverage had a 39% better viewer recall when they ran outside Rio coverage.
“We programmed to the opportunity that came before us”, summed up Lazarus in the press briefing. “We programmed marketing plans [in line with marketers’] desire to intersect with customers in different ways”. Before the games started, the company had said it could top the $120 million profit from the 2012 Olympics.
None of them averaged 28.1 million viewers on television within the last twelve months.
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“The Olympics are not immune to the tectonic changes in consumer media behavior”, observed Wurtzel.
