By comparison, the Games in London averaged a 17.3 rating over 17 days.
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NBC said it will make good on its audience guarantees to Olympics advertisers, offering them free extra commercial time during the games to make up for U.S. TV ratings that have fallen short of viewership four years ago.
German TV audiences are reportedly better, despite a fire at ZDF’s studio in Rio which interrupted transmissions at around 1.30am on Monday morning.
Despite social media complaints about the number of commercials for the opening ceremony, Lazarus said there were actually fewer commercials shown that night than for the London festivities.
Through Tuesday prime time, NBC-only coverage was averaging 15.6 percent of homes and 28.6 million viewers – spectacular, NFL-caliber numbers compared to most sports events but down from 2012 in London. It is also the first time the broadcast network coverage, including primetime, has been streamed simultaneously on digital platforms.
LOS ANGELES Aug 11 Viewership of the summer Olympic Games on Comcast-owned NBC’s television and digital platforms is in line with the network’s expectations, NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus said on Thursday after initial ratings showed smaller audiences than four years ago.
But even though the prime-time network broadcast is just one piece of a large pie, Lazarus said he expected it to “remain the biggest way that people consume the Olympics”.
NBC primetime coverage, although now trending upward, is so far trailing comparable viewership for the 2012 London Olympics.But the big picture is this. But the action Wednesday couldn’t match Tuesday night’s heroics, and early Nielsen ratings reflect that.
The Rio Olympics are the first to offer US prime-time coverage on channels other than the primary broadcast network, as well as the first to stream the broadcast network coverage, including prime time, simultaneously on digital platforms. While NBC’s network primetime coverage is still clearly the lead dog in its 2016 coverage, a future has finally arrived from Rio in which viewers are no longer held hostage to outmoded TV formulas.
Edmund Lee, managing editor at the online news site Re/Code, said NBC’s “raw” streams are not equivalent to professional broadcasts.
That was NBC’s highest live-stream ever for a Summer Olympics competition. “Clearly, I’d like the Olympics to be up in prime time, but I’m not anxious”, said Jack Hollis, group vice president of marketing for Toyota Motor Sales in the US.
“Our advertisers are happy”, he said. On Wednesday night, the total was 28.6 million. “The mix is just a little different”. Monday and Tuesday nights are nearly identical to the NBC-only ratings from London in 2012.
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Cable and streaming added an 8% lift on both nights – reaffirming that the vast majority of viewing is happening the old-fashioned way. They certainly don’t want the down year in Rio to become a trend over multiple Olympics.
