Olympics viewership continues to underwhelm.
NBC said Tuesday that Monday’s primetime coverage of the Tokyo Summer Olympics averaged 16.8 million viewers across its various platforms, down 47% from the comparable night of the Rio Summer Olympics in 2016 (31.5M). Figures include an average of 746,000 viewers per minute across NBC’s digital platforms (including Peacock), a new record for any night of any Olympics.
The Monday audience was lower than the previous night (20.0M), but exceeded the opening night of competition on Saturday (15.9M).
Final figures are now available for the first three nights of the Games. As mentioned previously, Sunday’s primetime coverage averaged an Olympic-high 20.0 million viewers across all NBC platforms (-37% from 2016), with NBC alone pulling in an 8.8 rating (-45%) and 16.87 million viewers (-43%).
Saturday’s primetime coverage averaged 15.9 million across all NBC platforms (-32%), with NBC pulling a 6.5 (-43%) and 12.64 million (-39%). Keep in mind NBC separated the first hour or so of Saturday’s primetime window as a separate program, which averaged a 4.8 and 8.74 million. With that portion of the telecast included, Saturday’s primetime window would have been even lower.
Finally, NBC’s primetime coverage of the Opening Ceremony averaged a mere 6.0 and 11.98 million — down 57% and 55% respectively from 2016 (13.9, 26.5M) and the least-watched primetime Summer Olympics telecast on record. That does not include the live, morning coverage of the Opening Ceremony. Per Sports TV Ratings the live telecast averaged 4.47 million Friday morning.
Including viewership across all NBC platforms, three of the first four nights of the Games rank among the least-watched primetime Summer Olympics telecasts this century.
All four nights of the Olympics have averaged 20 million or fewer viewers, matching the combined total of the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics — and the sub-20 million nights of those Olympics occurred toward the end, after most of the marquee competitions had concluded. In Beijing, nights fourteen and fifteen of the Games averaged 17.9 and 16.8 million viewers, respectively. Zero nights of the London Olympics fell below the 20 million mark. In Rio, night fifteen averaged 15.4 million and the Closing Ceremony 17.0 million.
Already, Tokyo has matched Sydney in 2000 for the most nights at or below 20 million viewers of any Summer Olympics this century.
It bears noting that in the current television environment, the Olympics stands out as one of the industry’s strongest properties. Monday’s audience exceeds all-but-one non-football sporting event this year (the Baylor-Gonzaga men’s NCAA Tournament national championship averaged 16.9 million).
Least-watched primetime Summer Olympics windows (2000- )
[Nielsen estimates from NBC Sports]
