The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina continue to deliver massive viewership for U.S. rights holder NBC, averaging 23.9 million viewers through Wednesday across NBC, Peacock, other NBCUniversal digital platforms, and Versant’s CNBC and USA Network—up 90% from the comparable period during the 2022 Beijing Games and marking the most-watched Winter Olympics at this stage since Sochi in 2014.
Wednesday's coverage averaged 20.2 million viewers in the combined afternoon and primetime windows, marking the 13th consecutive day topping 20 million viewers. Highlights included skier Mikaela Shiffrin's gold-medal win in the women's slalom and the U.S. men's ice hockey team's quarterfinal victory, with the hockey game drawing 6.9 million viewers, the most-watched Olympic men's hockey broadcast since the 2010 U.S.-Canada gold-medal game.
Streaming has exploded, with a record 12.9 billion minutes of Olympics content consumed on Peacock, up 87% from all prior Winter Games combined.
Key factors driving the surge include:
- A favorable time difference: Milan is only six hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast and nine hours ahead of the West Coast—far better than the 13-14 hour gaps in Beijing 2022 and PyeongChang 2018, enabling more live viewing.
- A programming strategy emphasizing extensive live coverage across platforms, paired with storytelling-focused primetime shows—similar to the approach that boosted the 2024 Paris Summer Games by 82%.
- Strong production elements, such as drone camera usage.
- Team USA's standout performance: As of Friday morning, the U.S. had nine gold medals (tied for second) and 27 total medals (second behind Norway), approaching or challenging all-time U.S. Winter highs from 2002 and 2010.
- Nielsen's enhanced measurement, including Big Data + Panel and expanded out-of-home viewing.
More gains are expected in the final days before Sunday's closing ceremonies. Thursday's dramatic overtime victory by the U.S. women's ice hockey team over Canada in their gold-medal rematch—reviving one of the sport's fiercest rivalries was not yet included in the latest averages, with NBC reporting it as the most-watched women's hockey game on record (averaging 5.3 million viewers on USA Network and Peacock, peaking at 7.7 million in overtime).