“If there is a small shortfall, we put it into the Olympic Games”, Lazarus noted of the deficit.
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“We build in inventory to make sure we deliver what we promised them”, Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBC Sports Group, said in a media call, according to Bloomberg, which cited an ad buyer that NBC promised an average primetime rating of 18 (Lazarus said NBC has been averaging a 15.6 during primetime, the report added).
But the bell cow remains the prime-time showcase broadcasts on NBC’s over-the-air network.
The Olympic rings decorate the sail of Ukraine’s Oleksandr Tugaryev as he prepares to compete in the men’s RS:X at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016. However, the broadcasting company is seeing much bigger picture after a stumbling performance in prime-time programming.
The results are a mixed bag for NBCUniversal, which is using its newly developed Total Audience Delivery (TAD) tool for the Rio games. That measures broader Rio Olympics consumption by calculating average minute viewing across broadcast, cable and digital. Even compared to four years ago, the Olympics are facing an increasing amount of competition for viewers’ eyeballs from cable, satellite, streaming services, and more.
After a disastrous start for the opening ceremony and first night of competition, NBC viewership picked up with the success of the US swimmers and gymnasts.
Date Total Audience Delivery NBC-only viewership TAD Lift Sat. 8/6 23.5 million 20.6 million 14% Sun. Just 30 million people tuned in for NBC’s prime-time airing of the opening ceremony, a 26% drop from the almost 41 million who watched that event in London in 2012. “While broadcast is down, cable and streaming are up”.
Viewership has met NBC’s expectations, “it’s just the mix is a little different”, he said.
“That’s what we’re selling and that’s why advertisers want to buy the Olympics”, he added. “We are aggregating audiences at a scale that no one has ever seen before”.
The network surely owns advertisers some extra ads, known as “make goods”, to make up for lower-than-expected ratings levels.
While the streaming stats are modest in comparison with broadcast and cable, the industry will naturally be closely watching that factor.
NBC, after all, has both the Summer and Winter Olympics through 2032.
On Thursday morning NBC said that its live streaming of the games had “topped 1 billion minutes” after five days of competition. “Our numbers will top the streaming for all Olympics combined in just a few days”, Lazarus told the press.
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Sports loves the traditional Olympic viewers who watch the Games at home on TV. “We programmed where consumer behavior is growing”.
