© ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT (AFP)
The 2022 Winter Olympics record the worst ratings in history since NBCUniversal began broadcasting the event. Here the details.
Disastrous!
The Beijing Winter Olympics recorded the worst rating in history since NBCUniversal began broadcasting the event. NBC has owned the broadcast rights for decades and the numbers thrown this 2022 were simply disastrous.
According to information revealed by The New York Post, the company drew an average of 11.4 million viewers in prime time during the two and a half weeks that the competitions lasted. The Olympics were broadcast through the NBC channels, as well as its streaming platform: Peacock.
These numbers mean a 42% drop from the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, the same ones that had registered the worst audience so far.
“These were probably the most difficult Olympics of all time,” said NBC sports president Pete Bevacqua to The Wall Street Journal, adding that, to compensate for the poor audience, the company had to give advertisers additional commercial time on the screen.
The Beijing Winter Games drew the lowest ratings in the history of the Olympics since NBC began broadcasting the event.
The 2022 Games drew an average of 11.4 million primetime viewers — a roughly 42% drop from the previous low, Pyeongchang 2018 ???? pic.twitter.com/J1AIFFwGMB
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) February 22, 2022
The Super Bowl LVI, salvation
The numbers rose sharply on February 13, after the transmission of Super Bowl LVI.
The Winter Olympics reached its best primetime ratings ever with 21.2 million average viewers, following the broadcast of Super Bowl LVI what gender 112 million viewers for the company.
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A hit for Peacock?
Although the broadcast on television did not yield good numbers, the situation is different for the streaming service. According to data revealed by the same NBC, Peacock broadcast 4.3 billion minutes of the Olympics, being his “best 18-day usage period since launch in 2020.”
“For Peacock, it was a home run. We drastically improved our strategy in the time between Tokyo and Beijing.”said Pete Bevacqua.
The earnings of the Olympics
Regarding income, NBC reported that the company made about $1.8 billion from the Tokyo Olympics, however it was not disclosed if any profit was made from this revenue. so it is expected that The Beijing Winter Olympics also do not generate profits for the company.
NBC is paying about $1.3 billion dollars for the transmission of the Olympic Games in United States until 2032.