2022 Olympics: Beijing Games draw lowest primetime viewership ever on NBC
The Beijing Olympics are officially the least-watched Games in primetime on NBC ever. The two-week event averaged 10.7 million viewers per night on television, NBC announced on Monday, with that number rising slightly to 11.4 million including all other viewing platforms.To get more news about 2022 winter olympics, you can visit shine news official website.
Tokyo, the previous lowest, averaged 15.1 million TV viewers in primetime. Four years ago, the Pyeongchang Games averaged 17.8 million viewers per night. NBC owns the U.S. media rights to the Olympics through 2032.
NBC's coverage did also have a digital presence, though. The network said 160 million Americans watched the Olympics across all NBCUniversal platforms. Peacock, which launched in 2020, had its "best 18-day span of usage" during the Games.
If the Games' viewership did have one bright spot, it was the women's hockey gold medal game between Canada and the United States. It averaged 3.54 million viewers, more than any NHL game televised in the U.S. this season.
There were 4.3 billion streaming minutes across digital and social media, making Beijing the company's most-streamed Winter Games ever. That figure was 5.6 billion for Tokyo.So, if the Olympic Games are a hit—if millions more are watching than are showing up in the traditional TV ratings metrics—then why isn’t NBC’s PR shop bragging a whole lot more? While press releases have regularly detailed the gains made by NBC’s streaming outlet Peacock, the titanic numbers racked up on TikTok and YouTube garner far less enthusiasm from the old broadcast network.
The reason, like so much in commercial media, boils down to revenue. Each individual linear TV viewer remains far more valuable than thousands (or even tens of thousands) of social media users. To note that the reach of YouTube and TikTok is extending NBC’s viewership into the hundreds of millions might unintentionally send the network’s more lucrative broadcast audience into the sea of on-demand digital video consumption, where their value would be diluted.
Cannibalizing audience has always been a threat when new media practices displace old ones. That’s the reason newspapers rushed into broadcasting in the 1920s by purchasing or starting radio stations, and why those radio stations bought up television licenses in the late 1940s and early 1950s. What’s largely forgotten today is the extent to which old media models funded those transitional eras. Radio advertising’s enormous profitability subsidized the inventiveness and creativity that early television needed to fully develop, just as television today is funding the online video revolution.
The Beijing Olympics are officially the least-watched Games in primetime on NBC ever. The two-week event averaged 10.7 million viewers per night on television, NBC announced on Monday, with that number rising slightly to 11.4 million including all other viewing platforms.To get more news about 2022 winter olympics, you can visit shine news official website.
Tokyo, the previous lowest, averaged 15.1 million TV viewers in primetime. Four years ago, the Pyeongchang Games averaged 17.8 million viewers per night. NBC owns the U.S. media rights to the Olympics through 2032.
NBC's coverage did also have a digital presence, though. The network said 160 million Americans watched the Olympics across all NBCUniversal platforms. Peacock, which launched in 2020, had its "best 18-day span of usage" during the Games.
If the Games' viewership did have one bright spot, it was the women's hockey gold medal game between Canada and the United States. It averaged 3.54 million viewers, more than any NHL game televised in the U.S. this season.
There were 4.3 billion streaming minutes across digital and social media, making Beijing the company's most-streamed Winter Games ever. That figure was 5.6 billion for Tokyo.So, if the Olympic Games are a hit—if millions more are watching than are showing up in the traditional TV ratings metrics—then why isn’t NBC’s PR shop bragging a whole lot more? While press releases have regularly detailed the gains made by NBC’s streaming outlet Peacock, the titanic numbers racked up on TikTok and YouTube garner far less enthusiasm from the old broadcast network.
The reason, like so much in commercial media, boils down to revenue. Each individual linear TV viewer remains far more valuable than thousands (or even tens of thousands) of social media users. To note that the reach of YouTube and TikTok is extending NBC’s viewership into the hundreds of millions might unintentionally send the network’s more lucrative broadcast audience into the sea of on-demand digital video consumption, where their value would be diluted.
Cannibalizing audience has always been a threat when new media practices displace old ones. That’s the reason newspapers rushed into broadcasting in the 1920s by purchasing or starting radio stations, and why those radio stations bought up television licenses in the late 1940s and early 1950s. What’s largely forgotten today is the extent to which old media models funded those transitional eras. Radio advertising’s enormous profitability subsidized the inventiveness and creativity that early television needed to fully develop, just as television today is funding the online video revolution.