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NBC’s coverage of the Tokyo Olympics ended up as the lowest-rated summer games in network history.
NBC’s prime-time coverage of the Tokyo Olympics attracted an average of 15.5 million prime-time viewers. The total is the smallest audience for the Summer Games since the network began broadcasting them in 1988, according to the Wall Street Journal, which added that the event has seen a 42% drop since the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
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Outkick media columnist Bobby Burack thinks the sport is all about passion and fandom, but “American viewers no longer share those emotions about the Olympics” after years of fan feuds over which athletes become political.
American Olympic hammer thrower Gwen Berry arguably set the tone at the medal ceremony during her trials when she turned her back on the American flag as the national anthem played. The move sparked outrage from some potential viewers, but Berry maintained that she represented “oppressed people” who tuned in to the games. Other athletes knelt down in an attempt to force social change on the world stage, angering some viewers even more.
“Here’s the problem: the left is ashamed of what America stands for and the right is ashamed of the representation that divides the country by athletes,” Burack told Fox News. “Combine the two, and neither team cares whether the United States wins gold, silver or gets humiliated.”
However, a lack of American spirit was not the only thing plaguing the Tokyo Olympics.
NBC Sports President Pete Bevacqua said the network had ‘launched a series of curve balls over the past 18 months’ as the coronavirus pandemic delayed the games by a year, forcing the Olympics to unfold in empty stadiums and launching widely criticized protocols. Additionally, a variety of top athletes have had to withdraw after testing positive.
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Potential viewers also complained about hard-to-find events across an assortment of viewing options, confusion over the Peacock streaming service, and a significant time difference causing major events to be delayed on tape at a time. An age when mobile alerts and social media make spoilers inevitable.
Sports journalist Darren Rovell covered the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Vancouver 2010 for CNBC. His current position as Senior Executive Producer of Action Network put him in a situation where he wanted to consume the games as a fan, but Rovell believes NBC has made it difficult by emphasizing the service of Peacock streaming instead of regular TV.
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“I don’t think NBC is getting away with it,” Rovell told Fox News. “Obviously they wanted to lead people to Peacock, I think that didn’t work.”
Rovell said NBC had done a “terrible job” leading people to linear television.
“They just weren’t good at telling you what happens when. And that’s no excuse… If you wanted to watch. [an event], a lot of people didn’t even know when it was on, which to me doesn’t make sense, ”Rovell said.
He said jet lag was another obvious problem in today’s age of technology, as CNBC told him in 2008 that the fireworks behind a live shot should be ignored because the network had yet to broadcast the delayed opening ceremonies on tape.
“It was OK 13 years ago, it’s not OK now,” Rovell said, noting that NBC continued to broadcast events hours after they happened.
“I think in the last five years, since 2016, things in general are now inevitable. You can’t avoid something once a Bleacher report or anyone goes into the streams, which is sometimes as unintentional or inadvertently depending on what you subscribe to. In the past five years, they’re inevitable, “said Rovell.
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Media mogul Bill Simmons blasted NBC when he tried to watch coverage of men’s basketball.
“They show it at weird times, after games end they don’t have a replay of the game, you basically have to search for the game and hope there is a clip there and then about seven hours later , they’re ‘I’ll show off a seven-minute recap of the game,’ Simmons said on his podcast.
“How can they fuck this? It’s hard? There are so many basketball fans,” Simmons added. “We are in 2021, how are we screwing this up?”
Others complained that the games lacked star power and that gymnastics legend Simone Biles stepping down from most of her scheduled events didn’t help matters. The Wall Street Journal reported that some disappointed Olympic advertisers were offered additional advertising time “to make up for the shortfall in audience size promised by NBC,” which is standard practice in the industry when ratings are disappointing.
“Some ad buyers have said they may seek a discount on Super Bowl ads or a seat at the Beijing Winter Games, which is scheduled to begin Feb. 4, to resolve contractual issues,” the Journal reported.
The opening ceremony drew 16.7 million viewers for NBC on Friday, the smallest audience for the network to broadcast since the 1988 Seoul Games. On Sunday, the closing ceremonies averaged 8.8 million viewers for also finish as the least watched of all time.
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NBC remained publicly optimistic despite the disappointing audience, issuing a press release touting the record breaking over 7,000 hours of coverage it made available, the closing ceremonies winning Sunday night and Peacock, which is still relatively new. , having his best two week period ever. .
Deadline editor and television critic Dominic Patten wrote that the NBC Olympics had “faced” and poked fun at the network’s positive turn.
“NBC will probably never admit it, but the Comcast-owned network must be so relieved that the Tokyo Olympics are finally over,” Patten wrote, noting that NBC bragged about earning ratings on shows such as CBS’s “Big Brother” is not. exactly what advertisers expected.
“It’s not much to tell, from Tokyo or elsewhere,” he wrote.
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