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The opening ceremony of the Olympics had a low audience

2021-07-27T02:09:50.996Z


The television audience for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games barely reached 17 million viewers in the US.


This is how the Olympic Games open 1:22

New York (CNN Business) -

The Tokyo Olympics officially kicked off this weekend and, at first glance, the audience ratings for Friday's opening ceremony looked like a flop.


According to the first figures, only 17 million people watched the opening ceremony on television in the United States.

This figure represents a sharp decline of 36% compared to the Rio 2016 ceremony, which in turn was the one with the lowest audience since 1992.

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This is bad news for NBC, which has invested billions of dollars in licensing the Olympics over the next decade.

But if you dig a little deeper, the audience has not dropped as much as you might think, which shows that the numbers on television no longer tell the whole story.

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For example, the number of people who watched the Tokyo opening ceremony through NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app soared 72% compared to Rio.

So far, viewers have watched a total of 371 million minutes of content from the Tokyo Olympics on NBC's various digital platforms, 21% more than in the same Rio time frame, according to NBC.

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Although the network did not break down the specifics of Peacock, its streaming service, NBC said the service recorded the "Saturday with the highest consumption in history."

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Unlike five years ago, streaming is no longer a side business that collects a few additional viewers through websites and apps.

It's an important part of the plan and the future of every media company, and NBC's Peacock streaming service, which has been on the market for a year, is just one of many out there.

Audiences have multiple viewing options, from these streaming services to social media, and their viewing habits are changing.

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The change underscores the increasing fragmentation of the media space, which means that television alone may not attract the large numbers it once did, even for a monumental event like the Olympics.

This doesn't mean that people aren't watching, and with NBC expecting the Olympics to boost subscriptions and increased interest in Peacock, the digital audience is good news.

It is not that the networks no longer worry about the numbers of traditional television.

So yeah, the opening ceremony ratings are a disappointment.

But they are also a reflection of the changing times of the media, and NBC expects those digital audience figures to remain strong during the event's two weeks.

Audience Tokyo 2020

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-07-27

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