Viewership for the much-maligned Beijing Winter Olympics remains in historically low territory.
Tuesday’s primetime coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics averaged 8.35 million viewers on NBC alone and 11.0 million across all platforms, down 59% and 51% respectively from the comparable night of the PyeongChang Games four years ago (20.5M on NBC, 22.6M across all platforms).
The previous night’s window was not much better, averaging 8.45 million on NBC and 11.5 million across all platforms — down 58% and 48% respectively from ’18 (20.3M; 22.3M).
The primary NBC telecasts delivered the second and third-smallest primetime Olympic audiences ever on broadcast television, topping only last Thursday’s “bonus” coverage (7.25M). Dating back to last year’s Tokyo Summer Olympics, six of NBC’s last nine primetime Olympic windows have averaged fewer than ten million viewers.
The across-all-platforms picture is more flattering, if barely. Tuesday’s combined audience was the fourth-smallest for any night of an Olympics ahead of last Thursday’s “bonus” coverage (8.0M), last year’s Closing Ceremony (9.0M) and last year’s final night of competition (10.5M). Monday’s audience ranks fifth.
The 15 least-watched nights of the Olympics — across all platforms — have occurred within the past year.
As should go without saying for an Olympic Games, primetime coverage easily outpaced all other programming on both Monday and Tuesday.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 2.8, 2.9, network PR]
