If still historically low, Beijing Olympics viewership improved a bit midweek.
Thursday’s primetime coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics averaged 11.09 million viewers on NBC and 13.2 million across all platforms, down 32% from the equivalent night of the PyeongChang Winter Games four years ago (16.20M on NBC, 19.3M across all platforms) — marking the smallest declines of the Olympics thus far.
The NBC-only audience was its highest of the Games thus far, topping coverage last Sunday night (11.00M). The all-platforms audience ranks third for the Games behind last Sunday (13.7M) and last Saturday (13.6M).
Primetime coverage the previous night averaged 9.79 million on NBC and 12.0 million across all platforms, down 43% and 38% respectively from ’18 (17.04M; 19.2M) — the second-smallest declines of the Games.
Despite steep declines and historic lows, the Olympics continues to dominate the rest of television. Thursday marked the 99th-straight night that the Olympics has helped NBC finish first in primetime, a streak that dates back to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics — when the then-dominant “American Idol” on FOX edged the Games.
As NBC noted in a Friday press release, Thursday’s TV-only Olympic audience (12.6M) was two-thirds higher than the combined audience of the other broadcast networks (7.6M).
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 2.11, NBC Sports]
