NBCUniversal attracted a combined audience of 28.6 million viewers across NBC and Peacock with its coverage of the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony.
Over the weekend, NBC revealed viewership statistics for its Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony coverage, drawing from custom fast national data provided by Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. The audience figures encompass both Friday’s live afternoon broadcast and NBCUniversal’s primetime presentation. Additionally, Telemundo Deportes, NBCU’s Spanish-language network, attracted 666,000 viewers for its coverage of the event.
NBC reported that this year’s Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony was the most-watched Summer Olympics opening since London 2012. The event attracted a 60% larger audience than the Tokyo Opening Ceremony, which had 17.9 million viewers, and saw an 8% increase over the Rio Opening Ceremony, which had 26.5 million viewers.
Earlier this year, for the Paris Olympics NBCUniversal announced that it had secured $1.2 billion in ad sales, setting the stage for a potential record in Olympic advertising revenue. According to EDO linear data, brands that advertised during the Opening Ceremony saw a more than 320% increase in search volume compared to those that advertised during the Tokyo Opening Ceremony.
Furthermore, Peacock was not the only streaming platform that drew viewers to the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics. According to AdImpact, the live afternoon coverage of the event garnered an average of approximately 13.7 million viewers excluding the primetime presentation. The viewership peaked at around 4:30 pm ET, reaching an estimated 15.7 million viewers.
Additionally, streaming platforms collectively made up 40% of the total viewership for the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony as reported by AdImpact. Despite this substantial streaming audience, traditional linear TV remained dominant, accounting for 60% of the total viewership. Notably, AdImpact defines linear content as that viewed through set-top boxes, direct cable connections, or antenna connections while streaming content is accessed via TV native apps or OTT streaming devices.
According to AdImpact Google’s virtual MVPD, YouTube TV, played a significant role in streaming the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, capturing 10% of the total estimated viewership. In contrast, regular YouTube contributed 1% to the total viewership, highlighting the varying preferences for live event coverage among streaming audiences.