NBC and Peacock win ratings gold

Before they jet out of Paris, the folks at NBCUniversal — from NBC Sports to Peacock — might want to swing by France’s Champagne region to stock up on their namesake export. According to Nielsen ratings and internal NBC data released Monday, the company’s coverage of the Paris Olympics was a roaring success, drawing an average total audience of 30.6 million viewers over the course of the 17-day event. That’s a whopping 82 percent increase over the COVID-postponed Tokyo Games (16.9 million) and ahead of similar metrics for the recent Olympics in Rio (27.5 million) and London (30.3 million in final data, per NBC).

It’s a stunning win for NBCU owner Comcast, which like other traditional media companies has struggled in the transition from linear TV (broadcast and cable) to streaming. Not only did NBCU’s linear properties perform exceptionally well during the Games — with a halo effect for divisions like NBC News and Telemundo and USA Network — but subscription streamer Peacock dramatically improved its performance in 2021 and 2022 covering the Olympics.

While there have certainly been hiccups, the overall reaction to the streamer’s presentation of the Paris Games has been positive, while the numbers have been surprisingly good: NBCU says 23.5 billion minutes of coverage were streamed — most of it on Peacock. That’s 40 percent more viewership than the last two Olympics combined. On any given day, 4.1 million viewers streamed NBC Sports’ coverage of the Games, either on Peacock or the NBC Sports app. Part of that reflects the fact that NBCU offered more coverage this year and that Peacock’s subscriber base was larger. But it’s clear that viewers were much more invested in the Games than they were during Tokyo.

To be sure, comparing this year’s Games to past ceremonies isn’t as straightforward as it once was, for a number of reasons. More viewership has shifted to streaming, while for the first time, NBC aired events that took place in the evenings in Paris time live twice a day: first live during the day here in the United States and then again, in a repackaged form, in prime time. That’s why if you were to look only at Nielsen’s same-day prime-time linear ratings, the gains relative to Tokyo would seem less impressive, while the viewership would seem smaller relative to many nights during Rio or London. But then you’d also be comparing… scones to baguettes.

Remember: NBC used to make TV audiences wait until primetime to watch big events instead of giving them a choice, while streaming options in the past were less robust or nonexistent. So all measurable viewership occurred in a specific time period. That’s not the case in 2024, which is why NBC now calculates average viewership by combining viewership for the network’s live daytime coverage of the primetime competition in Paris; viewership for the highly produced version of those same events aired in the evening, U.S. time; people who also streamed live on Peacock; and primetime viewership for events that NBCU covers through its cable networks. NBC calls this combined ratings metric “total audience delivery,” and by that measure, the viewership is, as noted, dramatically larger than Tokyo and exceeds other Olympics as well.

While it’s tempting to think that NBC is pulling in some kind of ratings quickly, in this case, the network is very justified in going with something other than pure Nielsen primetime numbers. The fact is that audiences in 2024 simply don’t watch TV the way they did five years ago: Streaming (especially Peacock) is much more dominant, and whether someone watched Simon Biles work his magic at 1 PM or 9 PM later that night doesn’t matter much to advertisers (who, after all, are the reason ratings exist).

Is there any chance that the 2012 London Games would have had even higher overall numbers if NBC had shown the primetime events twice a day? and Did NBC have a streaming option? Sure. That’s why historical comparisons are a little inexact. But what’s clear is that a ton of people watched this summer’s Olympics, and those numbers were on par with how many people tuned in for past, super-successful Games. NBC won its gold.