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By Hélène Coster
July 24 (Reuters) – NBC’s broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics has attracted 16.7 million viewers, the smallest U.S. television audience for the event in the past 33 years, data shows NBCUniversal, owned by Comcast, on Saturday.
Across all platforms, including NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app, 17 million people watched the ceremony, the company said in an email.
Streaming audiences on these platforms increased 76% from the opening ceremony of PyeongChang 2018 and 72% from the opening of Rio 2016, reflecting a change in viewing habits.
Friday’s audience reflects a steep drop, despite difficult comparisons to previous opening ceremonies when viewers had fewer streaming options.
Television audiences for the opening of the Tokyo Games were down 37% from 2016, when 26.5 million people watched the opening of the Games in Rio de Janeiro, and 59% from 2012, when 40.7 million people watched the London ceremony.
The lowest in 33 years for a Summer Games opening ceremony was for the 1992 Barcelona Games, which 21.6 million people attended, according to Nielsen data. The opening of the 1988 Seoul Games attracted 22.7 million viewers.
Figures for Rio, London, Barcelona and Seoul reflect final ranking data which is not yet available for the opening of the Tokyo Games.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Friday’s smaller-scale opening event took place with less than 1,000 attendees at the Olympic stadium under strict social distancing rules.
Major absences included former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had courted the games in Tokyo, and major sponsors, as the event faced strong opposition in COVID-tired Japan.
With Tokyo 13 hours ahead of the U.S. east coast, NBC first broadcast the ceremony live in the morning at 6:55 a.m. EST Friday. NBC’s prime-time show began at 7:30 p.m. EST.
In its prime-time coverage, NBC acknowledged the pandemic and its toll while portraying the Olympics as a positive event.
“The absence makes the heart more loving,” said host Savannah Guthrie, co-host of NBC News’ morning show “Today”. “There is nothing like an Opening Ceremony to really get you excited about the Olympics.”
NBCUniversal has aggressively pushed its digital platforms this year and sees the Olympics as a critical subscriber driver for its Peacock streaming service.
The company plans to broadcast 7,000 “unprecedented” hours of Olympic Games coverage on its multiple television and Peacock networks. These include some of the most anticipated events, such as gymnastics and American men’s basketball, on the streaming platform. It will also broadcast over 5,500 hours of the Olympic Games on NBCOlympics.com and its sports app.
Not all of the athletes were present at the teams’ parade during the opening ceremony, due to rules that require many of them to arrive just before their competitions and leave shortly after to limit social contact.
Declining ratings are part of a trend among live television events, including awards shows and sports.
The February Super Bowl broadcast on CBS, a unit of ViacomCBS, averaged about 92 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, the lowest since 2006. The April Oscars broadcast on ABC broadcast network Walt Disney Co’s averaged 10.4 million, a record, Nielsen mentioned. Audiences for the most recent Emmys and Grammys have also dropped to new lows.
NBCUniversal, which paid $ 7.65 billion to extend its United States broadcast rights for the Olympics until 2032, is touting the games as a “healing” event, despite the skepticism of many Japanese citizens about it. the wisdom of even hosting small-scale Games during a pandemic.
In June, NBCUniversal said it signed more than 120 advertisers for the games, more than any other Olympic Games broadcast. A spokesperson for NBCUniversal said this month the company is on track to surpass the $ 1.2 billion in commercials sold for the Rio 2016 Olympics, but declined to say whether it will exceed 1.25. billion dollars sold last year before the Tokyo Games were postponed.
Ratings are not an indication of profitability. Despite an overall audience drop from the London 2012 Olympics, NBC earned more than $ 250 million from its coverage of the Rio Olympics, with ad sales up more than 20% from London. (Report by Helen Coster, edited by Richard Chang)
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