Three-Day Total Viewership Average Up 79% from Tokyo Olympics

NBCUniversal’s presentation of the opening Sunday of Paris Olympics competition on NBC, Peacock, and across key NBCU platforms posted a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 41.5 million viewers, according to custom fast national data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics – nearly doubling the opening Sunday of competition for the Tokyo Olympics (21.7 million across all platforms).

Highlighted by Simone Biles leading the U.S. to the top score in the women’s gymnastics qualifier, the 1-2 finish by Torri Huske and Gretchen Walsh in the 100m butterfly, the U.S. women’s rugby team topping Brazil, and Leon Marchand winning gold in the 400m individual medley in his home country, live coverage in the afternoon (Paris Prime: 2-5 p.m. ET) was followed by a primetime presentation (8-11 p.m. ET/PT).

Beginning with Friday’s Opening Ceremony, NBCUniversal has a posted three-day Total Audience Delivery average of 34.5 million viewers across the combined live Paris Prime (2-5 p.m. ET) and U.S. primetime (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) time periods – up 79% from Tokyo (19.3 million).

A pair of U.S. victories in team sports also delivered audience milestones on Sunday. The U.S. men’s basketball team averaged 10.9 million viewers on NBC and Peacock – a larger audience than for its victory in the Tokyo Olympics gold-medal game (9.3 million) – in winning its opener against Serbia. Later in the day, the U.S. women’s soccer team’s win over Germany topped all men’s and women’s matches in the Tokyo and Rio Olympics, with an average of 4.2 million viewers on USA Network and Peacock.

Peacock Powers Streaming Milestones

Led by Peacock, 4.5 billion minutes of Paris Olympics coverage has been streamed through Sunday – surpassing the entire Tokyo Olympics (4.48 billion minutes across NBCUniversal digital platforms).

Paris Olympics Opening Weekend grew on Peacock as Sunday, July 28 surpassed Saturday, July 27 as its second-best day of engagement ever, behind only the Peacock AFC Wild Card Exclusive, which was the most live-streamed event in U.S. history.

Sunday’s coverage was streamed by 6.0 million viewers on Peacock and NBCU Digital platforms.

Sources: iSpot attention index, NBC (7/26-28); Marketcast TVBE, P18-49, NBC Prime vs. competitive broadcast/cable TV (7/26-27); EDO SER vs. auto category in competitive broadcast/cable TV (7/26-28); NBCU in-house audience insights utilizing 1P/3P data (7/26)