People DO Still Watch the Olympics

Well, would you look at that?  As it turns out, the reports that "no one watches or cares about the Olympics anymore" after the Tokyo Games were greatly exaggerated.  Because, as the Paris Games proved, that couldn't be further from the truth.  NBC has been bullish on its Paris ratings since the start of the Olympics, and the good news keeps coming.  Not only did people watch on traditional TV by the millions, they set records for Peacock, while completely changing the Olympic viewing model in the process.

First, let's talk about Tokyo.  A lot of factors contributed to NBC's lackluster ratings, which turned out to be more of a one-time blip than an indication of a future trend.  And those factors, more than anything else, contributed to those disappointing numbers.  Nobody was happy about it, and nobody pretended to be.  But I think the higher-ups at NBC also understood the reason.

The most significant issue with Tokyo was the most obvious one.  Japan is literally on the other side of the world.  They were able to convince the IOC to schedule swimming finals in the morning so that they'd be live in prime time here, but pretty much everything else was in the middle of the night!  So, unless you were staying up all night and watching on cable, chances are you didn't see much of the Tokyo Games live.  And people are less likely to tune in hours later when they already know the result (which is impossible to avoid these days).

Then there's the COVID factor.  I don't mean to keep harping on the same point, but COVID definitely had an impact on a number of fronts.  It led to empty venues, which sucked out all of the atmosphere and made the made-for-TV Olympics a far less enjoyable viewing experience.  Likewise, they weren't able to go out in the city, so coverage was limited to the events and that's it.  And people already knew what happened in those events.  

There were also the people who simply didn't think the Tokyo Olympics should've happened at all, so they were less enthused to watch them.  I don't want to say people were completely apathetic about the Tokyo Olympics, but there was more skepticism than enthusiasm.  And, with COVID still having a direct impact on so many lives, they could easily be forgiven for being too preoccupied with other things to watch the Tokyo Olympics.

Finally, there's Peacock.  NBC launched Peacock in July 2020, a week before the Tokyo Olympics were supposed to start.  Peacock showing every event live was supposed to be what made people sign up for the streaming service.  The one-year delay obviously impacted those plans, and when the Tokyo Games finally did start in July 2021, not as many people as they anticipated were compelled to sign up for Peacock (which had already been going for a year at this point) just to watch the Olympics on a streaming service that didn't really offer much else.

Fast forward three years, and Peacock is one of the industry leaders when it comes to streaming live sports.  Peacock's also a much better service than it was in 2021, and the concept of streaming every Olympic event live wasn't nearly as daunting a task.  And some of the Peacock-specific programming, particularly Gold Zone, drew high praise.  NBC finally perfected the formula, which made a big difference.

In the past, NBC would hold marquee events for the primetime broadcast and not make them available anywhere else until they aired on the broadcast network.  That, frankly, was one of the biggest causes of frustration with many viewers for multiple Olympics.  This year, they just said "screw it."  They not only showed everything live, they had as many as seven linear TV channels going simultaneously, as well.  And they repeatedly showed you what else was being broadcast throughout the day, basically saying, "If you don't want to watch this, that's fine.  You can watch these other things instead."

That's a vast difference from NBC's approach not even too long ago, when the NBC broadcast network was essentially your only option.  That's still the case in a number of other countries, by the way.  I have a friend who was in Croatia throughout the Olympics.  Croatian TV had the Olympics on the main network and a secondary channel, and that was it.  Your options were limited to what was being shown on those two channels.  You couldn't even stream something else.  It made him miss NBC's variety of offerings.

NBC's offerings this year included full, live coverage in the early morning hours of sports that would also be edited for broadcast on the main network later on.  Morning sessions of swimming, track & field and gymnastics were shown in full on either USA or E!, meaning fans of those sports wouldn't miss anything, while it also gave them more options for the main NBC telecast.  They even showed full coverage of finals (in a variety of sports) that would be broadcast later on NBC.  And full coverage of every Team USA game in team sports was available on cable.  The network's ability to only broadcast one thing at a time was no longer a limitation.

Now let's talk about Gold Zone, the highly popular feature that was a huge success and drew instant acclaim.  It was basically NFL Red Zone, but for the Olympics.  The show was on for 10 hours (7 AM-5 PM) every day, with a rotating stable of hosts taking turns.  It was fresh, it was new, and, most importantly, it gave people what they wanted in real time.  They showed every gold medal event as it was happening, jumping around between different sports and even featuring multiple events at the same time (think NFL Red Zone's quad box).  For casual fans who were just watching the Olympics because it was the Olympics, they could leave Gold Zone on all day and not miss a thing, while also being entertained at the same time.

And, while it's an obvious point, it's also important to note that Paris is in a much more convenient time zone.  A European Olympics is always more favorable for Americans because of the time difference.  Paris is only six hours ahead of the East Coast, so, even though the primetime coverage couldn't be live, they could go live all afternoon until then.  And that's exactly what NBC did.  The highest-rated daypart of their afternoon coverage was the 2-5 PM window (8-11 PM in Paris) when most of the finals in the marquee events took place.

One of the biggest questions heading into the Olympics was whether people who watched these events live in the afternoon would still watch in prime time.  As a result, the primetime show was packaged differently, focusing not just on more than just the event coverage, which viewers may or may not have seen already.  The answer to that question was a resounding "Yes."  And Primetime in Paris was a vastly different show than the live-event-focused daytime show.  Was it everyone's cup of tea?  Probably not.  But it struck enough of a balance to keep everyone happy (or, at least, happy enough).

It was something worth trying for a European Olympics, which is really the only time a Primetime in Paris-type show would work.  In LA, the primetime show will obviously revert back to a more traditional broadcast.  The 2028 Olympics as a whole will be a vastly different viewing experience since everything won't just be (for the most part) live, it'll be the first time in 12 years that it's all happening in this part of the world, where there won't be any early-morning or late-night events (although, waiting until 10 or 11 AM for the Olympic day to start will also be kind of weird).

Lastly, and I think most importantly, people were excited for the Olympics again.  NBC's coverage was, by and large, significantly better.  But even if it wasn't, ratings still would've been better because of the perfect storm.  An Olympics without COVID for the first time since 2018, an Olympics not in the same part of Asia for the first time since 2016, superstar athletes on Team USA, and, oh yeah, they were in freaking Paris!  There was genuine excitement for these Olympics.  It all adds up to must-see TV.

Will this positive trend continue heading into Milan-Cortina 2026 (the Winter Olympics are traditionally less-viewed anyway) and LA 2028 (when, you'd figure, people will watch because they'll be the first American Olympics in 32 years)?  Who knows!  But there are a lot of positives to take away from NBC's Olympic ratings rebound in Paris that will likely carry over into their future Olympic broadcasts.  They not only found a model that works in the age of streaming, they might've perfected it.  And the ratings showed that.