TV Ratings: Opening Ceremony Drew 21.4M Viewers

The opening ceremony for the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics drew 21.4 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, marking a strong start with a 34% increase from the 2022 Beijing Games' 15.9 million (or approximately 16 million in some reports).

Preliminary data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics show the Friday event—airing live at 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET and re-aired in primetime—averaged more than 3 million streaming viewers on Peacock alone, making it the most-streamed Winter Olympics opening ceremony ever. 

Overall streaming on NBCUniversal platforms reached 700 million minutes through Friday, 2.5 times higher than the comparable period for Beijing 2022.

NBC Sports president Rick Cordella said in a statement: “We are off to a strong start with Friday’s captivating Opening Ceremony highlighted by the historic cities, the scenic mountain areas, and the Parade of Athletes. The Opening Ceremony audience exceeded our expectations, and we can’t wait for the next two weeks of competition.”

The ceremony, which ran longer than its planned three hours (closer to 3 hours 40 minutes), celebrated Italian culture, art, music, and expressive hand gestures. It featured performances by Mariah Carey, Laura Pausini, Andrea Bocelli, actor Pierfrancesco Favino, and “The White Lotus” star Sabrina Impacciatore.

For context, Beijing's 2022 opener saw 16 million viewers (a 43% drop from PyeongChang 2018's 28.3 million), while the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics ceremony drew 28.6 million (up 60% from Tokyo 2021's 17.9 million).

The broadcast led into an episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” which averaged 2.3 million viewers—its most-watched since Thanksgiving.