Comcast’s NBC Universal drew an average daily audience of 30.6 million viewers during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, according to Nielsen data shared by the network on Monday.
The average included NBC’s live and same-day replay coverage of the Opening Ceremony in late July and the Closing Ceremony last Sunday. Specific ratings for the Closing Ceremony were not shared by NBC as of late Monday evening.
The network said its average daily audience — which it reports as the total audience delivery, or TAD — was up 82 percent compared to the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, which were delayed one year due to the international coronavirus health pandemic.
NBC extended its prime-time dominance with 152 consecutive nights of Summer Olympics coverage, with most events tape-delayed due to the difference in time zones between the United States and France. That dominance stretches back to the 1988 Summer Olympic Games, NBC said — the first year the network had the domestic telecast rights to the games since the 1970s.
“Our NBCUniversal team matched the occasion of this transformative Paris Olympics, presenting peerless coverage in daytime and prime-time across all platforms, including the NBC broadcast network, which once again was home to the most-watched night of television for 17 consecutive days,” Mark Lazarus, the Chairman of NBC Universal Media Group, said in a statement.
On the broadcast network, NBC offered a curated sample of highly-anticipated events live — many of which involved U.S. athletes, international superstars and up-and-coming competitors — during the morning and afternoon, the latter of which it called “Paris prime-time,” which fell between the hours of 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern Time.
In prime-time, NBC offered same-day replays of events sprinkled with general interest stories about the athletes and the competitions and reports from celebrities like rap musician Snoop Dogg and comedian Leslie Jones. Prime-time and late-night coverage also included interviews with athletes who medalled or otherwise performed in the events.
Live and replay coverage from the 2024 Summer Olympic Games was also offered on several NBC-owned cable networks — CNBC, E!, Golf Channel and USA Network — as well as two pop-up channels called Paris Extra 1 and Paris Extra 2. Most team competitions involving Team USA that were not broadcast on NBC were carried on USA Network, which offered an ultra high-definition (UHD/4K) simulcast on some cable, satellite and streaming cable-like services.
Comcast’s streaming service Peacock was the destination for the ultimate Olympics fan, offering all 39 competitions live as they happened in Paris, along with replays that allowed subscribers of the $8 per month service to watch completed competitions based around their schedules. Peacock also offered simulcasts of events on NBC and the cable networks, a whip-around style channel called “Gold Zone” that presented live look-ins on different events, a full schedule of events with the ability to save individual ones to a personalized watch list, a multi-view option during certain competitions and specialized programming like “Olympic Highlights with Kevin Hart & Kenan Thompson.”
Peacock also served up daily personalized highlights with an AI-powered narration that utilized the voice of legendary sportscaster Al Michaels. The feature was available on computers and Apple devices.
USA Network was the top cable sports and entertainment network in terms of total day and prime-time audiences throughout the competition, NBC said. Meanwhile, Peacock saw more than 23.5 billion minutes streamed by subscribers, topping the last two Olympic events — the 2020 Summer Games and the 2022 Winter Games — combined, NBC said, citing Adobe Analytics data.
Related: Special coverage of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games
“From the Opening Ceremony procession down the River Seine through more than two weeks of heart-stopping competition culminating this past weekend with Team USA’s gold rush in men’s and women’s basketball, women’s soccer, and track & field relays, these Olympics have captivated Americans in huge numbers across NBC Universal platforms,” Rick Cordella, the President of NBC Sports, said on Monday. “Led by our best-in-class engineering and production teams in Paris and Stamford, a staff of more than 3,000 worked tirelessly to present these reimagined Games in new and innovative ways in all day-parts and on all platforms. We are thrilled that Americans embraced and enjoyed the Paris Olympics as much as we have.”
Molly Solomon, the Executive Producer and President of NBC Olympics Production, said the network was “passionate about finding the perfect mix of storytelling and innovation” from the first day the broadcaster started planning for its 2022 Summer Games coverage.
“We were honored to present the Paris Olympics, and look forward to continuing to serve the dedicated fans and viewers for many Olympic Games to come,” Solomon said.
It wasn’t just NBC’s coverage of the games that took home a gold medal — the network saw significantly higher interest from advertisers compared to prior games, according to Lazarus.
According to iSpot data released by the network, NBC’s Summer Olympics coverage resulted in a 27 percent lift in advertising attention, a 44 percent increase in brand messaging recall and a 14 percent increase in brand search engagement. NBC also claimed there was a 17 percent lift in purchase intent among consumers who watched the games on the broadcast and cable networks. The survey data counted viewership between July 26 through August 8.
While NBC said its owned-and-operated stations saw a lift in local news ratings that were a direct result of the network’s Olympic Games coverage, just one NBC-owned station — KXAS (Channel 5) in Dallas — made the list of top 20 most-watched NBC stations or affiliates during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
The top market by share of viewers was New Orleans, where Hearst-owned WDSU (Channel 6) had an 18.9 rating/23 share. West Palm Beach and Tulsa were tied for second place, each with a 18.5 rating; West Palm Beach’s WPTV (Channel 5) had a 27 share, while Tulsa’s KJRH (Channel 2) had a 25 share. WPTV and KJRH are owned by the E. W. Scripps Company.
NBC and Peacock will offer coverage of the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games starting August 28.
