Spotlighting the rapidly changing fashion in which Americans consumer their Olympics content, NBC scored huge viewership for its live streaming coverage from Sochi and live telecasts on NBCSN, but struggled through near record lows in primetime viewership on the Peacock mothership. Nonetheless, NBC scored huge numbers overall when accounting for multiplatform consumption and dominated the competition with its primetime coverage, topping the other three broadcast nets during all 18 nights of the Sochi Games.<\/p>\n
In all, the NBC\u2019s 1500-plus hours of coverage from Sochi generated 242.3 million media exposures across the platforms of NBCUniversal \u2013 a 3.5 million increase over the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, which were televised live and proved to be the second-most watched Winter Olympics ever in terms of TV viewership. Viewers in three of every four U.S. television households (76.1%) tuned in to some portion of the Sochi Winter Games, with a total television reach of 178 million American viewers, according to Nielsen\u2019s fast cume data.<\/p>\n
Primetime: Down From Vancouver, But Up From Torino
\n<\/b>NBC averaged 21.4 million viewers and 12.3 household rating share for its primetime Sochi Olympics coverage (9-hour time difference from ET) \u2013 up 6% in viewership and 1% in ratings from 20.2 million viewers and 12.2 rating for the last European Winter Games in Torino in 2006 (6-hour difference).<\/p>\n
However, the Games trailed NBC\u2019s primetime coverage of the live (ET\/CT) 2010 Vancouver Games (averaged 24.4 million viewers with a 13.8 household rating) by 10% and 12%, respectively. The 2012 Sumer Games in London meanwhile, averaged a 17.5 rating and 31.1 million viewers.<\/p>\n
According to SportsMediaWatch<\/a>, the Sochi Olympics averaged the second-lowest rating and viewership ever for the Olympics in primetime, just ahead of the record-lows set in 2006. Despite ratings and viewership being up a healthy 8% and 14%, respectively, from Torino through the second Saturday of the Games, numbers dropped off sharply during the second week and the final three nights in Sochi rank as the three lowest-rated primetime Olympics telecasts in at least 20 years.<\/p>\n Even with the historically low primetime numbers, NBC thoroughly dominated the competition, as the Olympics generated record-setting advantages of 45% in viewers (21.4 million viewers), 32% in household rating (12.3), and 51% in Adults 18-49 (5.5) in primtime over the combined primetime totals of ABC, CBS and FOX, according to Nielsen\u2019s live plus same day official national data. Sochi programming was the top-rated program all 18 nights \u2013 besting Vancouver (14 of 17 nights) and Torino (8 of 17 nights).<\/p>\n NBCSN Skyrockets With Live Coverage In addition, the 10 best weekday daytime audiences in NBCSN\u2019s history were provided by its 10 weekdays of Sochi coverage and the network\u2019s five highest viewership totals for weekend daytimes also came during coverage of this Olympics.<\/p>\n The Team USA-Canada Olympic men\u2019s hockey semifinal on Feb. 21 posted a 2.7 household rating\/8 share to rank as the highest-rated hockey game in NBCSN history — exceeding Olympics competition as well as the ratings for any Stanley Cup Playoffs or Stanley Cup Finals game in the network\u2019s history.<\/p>\n \u00b7NBCSN averaged 4.1 million viewers for the Feb. 15 USA-Russia Olympic men\u2019s hockey game \u2013 setting a record for the most-watched hockey game in the network\u2019s history (previous: 4.0 million for Blackhawks-Bruins in 2013 Stanley Cup Finals Game 3).\u00a0Viewership for the game peaked at 6.4 million from 10-10:30 a.m. ET during the tension-laden, eight-round shootout and is the most-watched half hour in NBCSN history.<\/p>\n Digital Platforms Continue to Grow Approximately 80% of the video was viewed via \u201cTV Everywhere\u201d authenticated live streams on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra app. NBC Olympics\u2019 exclusive highlights comprised the remaining video viewed. Verification rates were significantly higher than the 2012 London Olympic Games.<\/p>\n The Feb. 21 verified live stream of the Olympic men\u2019s ice hockey semifinal between the United States and Canada, which Team Canada won 1-0, generated more than 2.1 million unique users (2.122 million) \u2013 believed to be the largest \u201cTV Everywhere\u201d verified streaming audience in U.S. history and ranking #1 in unique users for any NBC Sports Digital stream, topping NBC\u2019s non-authenticated Super Bowl XLVI in February 2012 (2.105 million uniques).<\/p>\n NBC Sports Digital marked three consecutive days with record-setting live streaming performances from Feb 19-21. \u00a0Prior to the Team USA men\u2019s hockey record noted above, the Feb. 20 U.S.-Canada women\u2019s gold medal game was the most streamed authenticated game in the history of NBC Sports Digital and most-streamed Olympics event ever (1.2 million unique users on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra app). The Feb. 19 U.S.-Czech Republic men\u2019s quarterfinal hockey game was previously the most-streamed Olympic event ever (798,337 uniques).<\/p>\n Late Night Window, Fallon Debut Earn Big Numbers In the second week of the Sochi Games, Jimmy Fallon debuted as the new host of \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d and averaged 8.5 million viewers during his first full week of shows (Feb. 17-21), marking the most-watched week for \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d since May 17-21, 1993 (week of the \u201cCheers\u201d finale).<\/p>\n Top Moments From Sochi \u00b7 The thrilling women\u2019s gold medal hockey game between the United States and Canada at noon ET on Feb. 20, won 3-2 by Team Canada on an overtime goal by Marie-Philip Poulin, averaged 4.9 million viewers on NBC to rank as the most-watched hockey game in the U.S., excluding Stanley Cup Finals, since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics men\u2019s gold medal game (Canada defeated the U.S. 3-2 on an overtime goal by Sidney Crosby).<\/p>\n NBC News and Affiliate News TODAY was the #1 ranked morning show for both weeks of the Sochi Olympics, posting its best viewership since the London Olympics.\u00a0 TODAY also grew its total viewer and key demo advantages over the competition by triple digits.<\/p>\n NBC Nightly News was the #1 evening news program for both weeks of the Sochi Olympics. In addition, for the first week of the Games, NBC Nightly News averaged 11.6 million viewers \u2013 ranking as the program\u2019s best viewership week in more than nine years (Jan. 2005) and topping the first-week audiences of the past four Olympics (London, Vancouver, Beijing, and Torino).<\/p>\n Local weekday newscasts on NBC affiliates enjoyed household ratings increases compared to the prior four weeks.\u00a0 Household ratings for late local news jumped 62%, local early morning news ratings increased 20%, and ratings for local evening newscasts were up 9%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Spotlighting the rapidly changing fashion in which Americans consumer their Olympics content, NBC scored huge viewership for its live streaming coverage from Sochi and live telecasts on NBCSN, but struggled […]\n More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2578],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/b>All 16 days of NBCSN\u2019s coverage (Feb. 8-23) posted higher viewership than its coverage of the 2012 London Olympics in the comparable 6 a.m.-3 p.m. ET time period. NBCSN averaged 1.6 million viewers for the Sochi Games in the 6 a.m.-3 p.m. ET time period \u2013 a 134% increase over the network\u2019s comparable daytime coverage of the 2012 London Games (692,000 viewers).<\/p>\n
\n<\/b>NBC Sports Group\u2019s digital platforms amassed nearly 62 million unique users (61.8 million) \u2013 a record for a Winter Olympics and topping the 2010 Vancouver Games by 29%. A Winter Olympics-record 10.8 million hours of video were consumed on NBC Olympics\u2019 digital platforms, more than triple the hours of video streamed for the Vancouver Games.<\/p>\n
\n<\/b>The NBC Olympics Late Night show produced its best Winter Olympics performance since the 2002 Salt Lake City Games with an average of 5.6 million viewers \u2013 topping Vancouver by 17% and Torino by 12%. Sochi late night coverage trails only London in 2012, which averaged 6.2 million viewers, among all Summer and Winter Games.<\/p>\n
\n<\/b>The Feb. 17 primetime telecast featuring Meryl Davis and Charlie White winning America\u2019s first-ever ice dancing Olympic gold medal averaged 23.5 million viewers and a 13.8 household rating \u2013 resulting in respective 29% and 18% advantages over the combined primetime viewership and household rating of ABC, CBS and FOX. Those advantages rank as the most-dominant Monday night in the Sept.-May TV season since the 1998 Academy Awards (Titanic won best picture) by any broadcast network compared to the combined performance of the other major broadcast networks.<\/p>\n
\n<\/b>NBC\u2019s national and affiliate news programming also posted increases in all dayparts.<\/p>\n