by Wayne Friedman
Source: www.mediapost.com, August 2024
Nine days into the two-week-long Paris Olympics, the event continues to earn strong viewership — now at 32.6 million average viewers, per the NBCUniversal proprietary Total Audience Delivery measure — 77% higher than the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics (18.4 million).
The U.S. Men’s basketball team’s win over Puerto Rico on Saturday posted 13 million viewers, coming from a live airing on NBC Television Network/Peacock combined with an encore airing on USA Network and Peacock.
The live afternoon coverage of the game was from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET, accounting for 9.4 million viewers. An additional 3.5 million viewers watched the 6 p.m. ET encore program airing.
Total Audience Delivery is based upon Nielsen’s live-plus-same day custom fast-national viewing data and Adobe Analytics’s digital video data.
The most recent Saturday also included the gymnastics competition, with a gold medal-winning performance by Simone Biles and swimming competition, featuring Katie Ledecky also winning gold. U.S. shot put competitor Ryan Crouser also won his third consecutive gold Summer Olympics medal.
Saturday’s viewing averaged 34.6 million viewers across all platforms, more than double viewing for the Tokyo Olympics (16.4 million).
Nine days of viewing combines all Olympics airings on NBC Television Network, Peacock, USA Network, E!, CNBC, Paris Extra 1, Paris Extra 2, and additional NBCU digital platforms.
Prime-time viewership was on NBC, Peacock, USA Network, Paris Extra 1 and Paris Extra 2. The “Paris Prime” daypart is live from 2-5 p.m. EST. time period.
The two main viewing linear TV networks for NBCUniversal through the first nine days are NBC Television Network (8.49 billion impressions) and USA Network (3.64 billion), according to estimates from EDO Ad EnGage.
Top brands over that time period on NBC and USA Network, in terms of airings and estimated spend, are Toyota (247 airings/$11.9 million); Nike (164 airings/$8.4 million); Delta Airlines (163 airings/$7.7 million); Visa (103 airings/$6.0 million); Skyrizi (95 airings/$5.8 million); and Eli Lilly (123 airings/$5.6 million).
