Delayed a year, the fanless Summer Olympics began with a historic viewership low for the Opening Ceremony.
Friday’s Opening Ceremony of the Tokyo Summer Olympics averaged 17 million viewers across NBC’s live morning broadcast and traditional primetime presentation, the smallest audience for any Opening Ceremony in the Nielsen people meter era (dates back to 1988). Figures are preliminary and it was not immediately clear whether they include out-of-home viewing.
Each of the previous six opening ceremonies averaged at least 25 million, including 27.8 million for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018 and 26.5 million for the Rio Summer Olympics in 2016.
Only two nights of the Rio Olympics averaged fewer than 20 million, the final night of competition (15.4M) and the Closing Ceremony (17.M).
As one would expect, the Opening Ceremony still averaged more viewers than most sporting events of late. The preliminary audience for the Opening Ceremony — which again should rise when out-of-home viewing is included — is on par with the Baylor-Gonzaga men’s college basketball national championship (16.9M), currently the most-watched non-football sportscast since 2019.
Outside of football and news, the year’s only television program with a larger audience was an exhaustively-hyped celebrity interview on CBS in March that averaged 17.8 million.
[Nielsen estimates from NBC]
