Re: Ratings for Paris Olympics
This article did bloviate on about how great they thought the Paris Olympics were, but at least they had the intellectual honesty to admit that the actual ratings weren't what they were hyped up to be. Remember how everyone talked about what a flop Rio was? Well, in their words: "On an apples-to-apples basis, Paris would probably clock in below Rio, much less London."
A few snips from the article:
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"No sports network has ever produced a viewership figure as - let's say creative - as the one that NBC publicized the past two weeks."
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"[…]the network's definition of primetime expanded to cover all manner of afternoon events. NBC's practice of adding concurrent cable viewing to its primetime figure — which began with the 2016 Rio Games — allowed the network to include daytime events that had never before counted to its primetime window, including basketball games and soccer matches on USA that NBC would not typically carry in primetime. The result is a primetime figure that bears no resemblance even to Tokyo in 2021, much less London — when viewership consisted of a single primetime window on a single network."
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"Add to that NBC's practice of adding Adobe Analytics to its Nielsen figure — and Nielsen's inclusion of out-of-home viewing in its estimates — and one has a viewership figure so inflated relative to past years that it rivaled the hot-air balloon holding the Olympic torch."
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"There is no question that viewership increased considerably from Tokyo in 2021, but any comparison to a COVID-era year will be flattering."
-"NBC has a decent enough story to tell without all of the combinations, as the network was averaging 20 million for primetime coverage on NBC, USA and Peacock into the second week of the Games. That is an impressive figure in 2024, particularly given all of the events had aired previously earlier in the day. Then again, why claim 20 million when you can claim 30 million? If not quite chicanery, the numbers should be received with at least some skepticism."
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"So is the Olympics actually "back"? Back from COVID, absolutely. Then again, there are few live properties of any kind that are not faring better now than they were in 2020 and 2021."
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/08/paris-olympics-recap-analysis/