An Olympics destined for record-low ratings opened with a historically weak Opening Ceremony.
NBC is projecting that its coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony averaged 14 million viewers across linear television and 14.4 million including additional streaming viewership not tracked by Nielsen. That figure is for the live morning broadcast and the tape-delayed primetime presentation.
Including additional Olympic coverage on USA Network, NBC is projecting a full-day audience of 16 million for Friday’s Olympic coverage.
The projected audience for the Opening Ceremony would be the lowest on record for any Olympics. Last year’s Opening Ceremony of the year-delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics was initially reported as averaging 17 million across the live and tape-delayed broadcasts.*
This year’s coverage generated less than half the audience of the previous Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in 2018 (27.8M). NBC only carried taped primetime coverage that year, though a live stream was available on NBC’s Olympics website. Eight years ago, the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony averaged exceeded the 30 million mark (31.7M). The Opening Ceremony of the previous Beijing Olympics, the 2008 Summer Games, averaged 34.9 million.
The Opening Ceremony was a far healthier draw than the previous night’s primetime window, which averaged fewer than eight million viewers on NBC. That is no real surprise. In both 2014 and 2018 — the only other Olympics in which NBC aired primetime coverage prior to the Opening Ceremony — the Opening Ceremony averaged 10 million more viewers than the previous night’s “bonus” coverage.
* Keep in mind that because Nielsen was undercounting out-of-home viewing between September 2020 and December of last year, it has recalculated viewership for television programs during that period. According to the Video Advertising Bureau, viewership for last year’s Opening Ceremony increased 1.6% over the initial report after Nielsen’s recalculation.)
[Nielsen estimates from NBC Sports PR]
