On Thursday, NBC Olympics’ live streaming for Rio 2016 reached 1.28 BILLION minutes – exceeding the COMBINED total of the entire London and Sochi Olympics (1.24 billion).
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The 1.05 billion minutes of live streaming via NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app is up 232 percent from the equivalent day in the London Games.
Consider that, for the first time, NBCU is actual offering up competition – live primetime sports on its NBCSN and Bravo channels – to its own NBC Olympic primetime coverage.
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.
Though TV ratings from the Summer Olympic games are down, live streams being delivered by NBC Olympics from Rio are surging.
“Rio 2016 is a huge hit”, Lazarus said. Cable accounted for 2.3 million viewers, while about 404,000 were streaming live video and earlier events.
“That’s what we’re selling and that’s why advertisers want to buy the Olympics”, he added.
But the number of commercials is actually down from four years ago. NBC is prepared for the possibility, as some commercial time on the Olympics are held in reserve in the event that ratings are lower than promised. “The mix is just a little different”.
The week’s 10 most-watched prime-time programs were NBC’s coverage of the Summer Olympics Sunday, the opening ceremony and Saturday; the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”; ABC’s “The Bachelorette” and “The Bachelorette: After The Final Rose”; CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory”, “NCIS” and the Thursday episode of “Big Brother”. It is renowned for its unsurpassed Olympic heritage, award-winning production, and ability to aggregate the largest audiences in USA television history.
NBC’s streaming is available free, but only to cable or satellite TV subscribers.
NBC says the comparison is valid because even though the cable viewers weren’t watching the same thing as people tuned in to NBC, they were still watching the Olympics. Not only does NBC’s coverage last until midnight, but I’m seeing events hours after they’ve happened and the results have shown up on Twitter. “We can alter our plans from Games to Games”.
“Our advertisers are happy, and we have structured and managed our inventory in a way that, throughout the games, they’ll be getting exactly what we promised them”, he said. The online coverage kicked off at 6:30 a.m. giving office workers on the East and West coasts plenty of time to kick back at their desks and watch Rickie Fowler.
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Though people aren’t tuning into the Olympics via cable, they do appear to be engaging with Olympics content online.
