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Olympics

NBC Viewership Remains Down From Recent Winter Olympic Games

NBC through Monday is averaging 23.8 million viewers for primetime coverage of the Pyeongchang Games across broadcast, cable and digital, down 6% from the same point four years ago in Sochi, when cable and streaming were not part of the measurement. The Pyeongchang total audience delivery also is down 15% from Vancouver eight years ago, when much of the coverage was live in primetime. NBC alone is averaging 21.8 million viewers in primetime to date, clearly making up the overwhelming majority of NBC Sports’ Olympic viewing audience. But cable and streaming continue to give NBC a double-digit percentage lift in primetime. On Monday, NBC alone averaged 20.3 million viewers from 8:00-11:24pm ET, but digital and NBCSN coverage gave a 10% bump to that figure for a total audience delivery of 22.3 million viewers. Monday night’s coverage featured U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim taking home her first Gold Medal. Coverage on NBC and NBCSN peaked from 9:15-9:30pm on Monday as Kim was making her final run. Meanwhile, for the first time during the Pyeongchang Games, Denver led all markets with a 25.7 local rating across NBC and NBCSN (25.7 local rating). Salt Lake City, which finished second on Monday with a 23.0 rating, had taken the top spot each of the first four nights (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).

WINTER OLYMPICS PRIMETIME VIEWERSHIP ON NBC
NIGHT
DAY
TURIN ('06)
VANCOUVER ('10)
SOCHI ('14)
PYEONGCHANG ('18)
TAD* ('18)
1
Thurs.
n/a
n/a
20,016
15,995
17,249
Opening
Ceremony**
Fri.
22,200
32,641
31,690
27,837
28,286
3
Sat.
23,239
26,189
25,115
21,394
24,159
4
Sun.
23,244
26,372
26,323
22,676
26,201
5
Mon.
21,069
25,224
22,395
20,295
22,341
AVG.
22,436
27,864
25,366
21,777
23,800
NOTES: * = TAD number includes broadcast, cable and digital viewing in primetime. ** = Pyeongchang was first time Opening Ceremony was streamed live (hours before NBC telecast).
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NBC Olympic Viewership

WHAT MAKES A VIEWER? In N.Y., Draper & Maheshwari write the total audience delivery number being touted by NBC in its ratings releases for Pyeongchang is a "standard of its own making." It is the "latest attempt at a valid head count in an industry where no one seems to be able to measure the crowd." Viewers are "spread too far and wide, no longer huddled around the TV." NBC used TAD during the Rio Games two years ago, but this is the "first time it has sold advertising based on it." NBCU Exec VP/Sales & Marketing Dan Lovinger said, "Advertisers now recognize that a viewer is a viewer." He eschewed the idea that there is a "fundamental difference between television and digital viewers." NBCU Chair of Ad Sales & Client Partnerships Linda Yaccarino has been a vocal critic of Nielsen in recent years, believing that the measurement company’s methods "don’t accurately count all the new ways people are watching its shows." While NBC "sees a strong need for better measurement of non-television viewers, especially in sports, it won’t necessarily be rolling out TAD across the NBC universe." The Olympics are "unique property, with thousands of hours of programming playing out on broadcast and cable channels, unlike a hit drama like 'This Is Us'." But while broadcasters "need to capture every viewer possible and figure out how to count them," they "aren’t yet in agreement on how to do that." ESPN Senior VP/Fan & Media Intelligence Cary Meyers, whose network is working directly with Nielsen on a live-audience metric that would be a different version of TAD, said, "In order for the industry to move forward, we have to coalesce around a single-source approach." TV data firm Simulmedia Founder & CEO Dave Morgan said that while it was "smart of NBC to push its own metric for the Games, it is also the right move for Nielsen to proceed carefully as it develops an industry standard for tracking viewers across a 'dizzying array' of consumer devices in the digital world" (NYTIMES.com, 2/14).

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