If the first night of coverage is any indication, NBC will have a tough time in the ratings with the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Thursday’s primetime coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics averaged 7.25 million viewers on NBC, marking the smallest primetime Olympic audience ever on the network. The previous low was 8.5 million for the final night of competition at last year’s Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Even including concurrent primetime coverage on USA Network — 512,000 viewers — the average of 7.78 million would still mark an all-time low. An across-all-platforms figure that includes NBC’s various streaming platforms will be provided here when it is available.
Figures do not include NBC’s first half-hour of coverage, which was modestly higher at 8.11 million viewers (and would still mark an all-time low).
It should be noted that Thursday’s telecast marked just the third time that NBC has aired primetime Olympic coverage prior to the Opening Ceremony. Compared to previous pre-Opening Ceremony windows, this year’s audience plunged 55% from NBC’s from PyeongChang four years ago (16.00M) and 64% from Sochi in 2014 (20.02M). The “bonus” night of coverage is typically not factored into NBC’s averages.
The declines in among key young demographics were particularly stark. Thursday’s NBC window averaged just a 1.2 rating in adults 18-49, down 68% from 2018 (3.7) and down 80% from 2014 (6.0). The rating in adults 18-34 was a mere 0.7, down 73% from ’18 (2.6).
As one would expect, even historically low Olympic ratings outpaced everything else on television Thursday night. Considering the state of TV, that is not the highest bar to clear.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 2.4]
