Olympics: Too Many Platforms Could Be Why TV Ratings Are Down

Broadcasters will not be taking home any gold medals for how many people have watched the Tokyo Olympic Games so far.

Reuters reports the TV audience has fallen since 2016, as viewing becomes more fragmented and athletes compete in Japan when audiences are mostly asleep in the United States and Europe.

Ratings data from the opening ceremony and first few nights of events indicate that the Tokyo Games are currently the least watched Olympics in recent history across Europe and in the United States. However, TV viewership is up in Australia and Japan.

Comparisons with previous Olympic Games are imperfect given the different times zones, the COVID pandemic and fewer streaming options in past Games, but a downward trend is clear.

The opening ceremony last Friday drew 16.9 million U.S. TV viewers, the smallest audience for the event in the past 33 years, according to Nielsen data provided by NBCUniversal. read more

That audience declined 36% from 2016, when 26.5 million people watched the Rio de Janeiro Games opener, and 58% from 2012, when 40.7 million people watched the London ceremony.

U.S. TV viewership hit a high of 19.4 million on Sunday night but has been downhill since then, dropping to 15.7 million on Tuesday.

In a call with analysts on Thursday, Jeff Shell, the chief executive officer of NBCUniversal - which paid $7.65 billion to extend its U.S. broadcast rights for the Olympics through 2032 - attributed record-low ratings to several factors.

“We had a little bit of bad luck, there was a drumbeat of negativity, we got moved a year, no spectators,” Shell said. “And that has resulted in a little bit of linear ratings being probably less than we expected.”

NBCUniversal is airing the Games across two broadcast networks, six cable networks, and multiple digital platforms including its Peacock streaming service. But that scope has led to confusion: It did not stream the opening ceremony on Peacock, for example. And while all of Peacock’s Olympics programming is available to stream for free, viewers need to pay for the $4.99 premium tier to watch men’s basketball live.

“The viewing experience needs to be streamlined,” said credit analyst Patrice Cucinello. “It’s confusing from a user experience, to go: ‘Wait a second. Do I have to watch it on the NBC app? Can I watch it on Peacock? When am I going to watch it? Why can’t I watch it on demand?’ You need a simplified user experience or people get frustrated.”