I keep seeing the Paris Summer Olympics getting lots of hype and it tells me that NBC hopes that this year's Summer Olympics will score big ratings for NBC. Because from the time it was announced to the opening ceremony Friday it seems that NBC thinks that the Paris Summer Olympics will gain an audience to their channel and this might become a winner for NBC. I have never figured why the Olympics still exist on TV today and I think in my eyes this year's Summer Olympics will indeed give NBC big ratings in TV

Possibly if it depends on how many viewers that 2024 Summer Olympic Games get.

Did you hear that Celine Dion will perform at the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony? This may draw NBC huge ratings for the Paris Summer Olympics for the opening ceremony alone. I think why NBC was chosen to have the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics was so NBC can score huge ratings for the channel because when it comes to sporting events NBC seems to draw a mega audience but when the Paris Summer Olympics begins I can predict that after it's first week NBC's ratings for the Olympics will be very high indeed

My mom saw part of the Paris Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony this afternoon and I think NBC is really hoping to get high ratings for the Paris Summer Olympics because according to my mom the Opening Ceremony was very unappealing and why I think NBC stuck Kelly Clarkson in the Olympics as a commentator was so she could promote it on The Kelly Clarkson Show. But when it comes to sporting events especially big major sporting events NBC wants big ratings

Now that the Paris Summer Olympics are over I wonder how NBC's ratings for the Olympics did? Because it seems that for big mega sporting events it usually garners NBC big ratings. But why NBC and Peacock seem to have become Olympics king rather than ABC and CBS i'll never know? Because the last time the 1998 Winter Olympics was on CBS but why CBS cut ties with the Olympics I don't understand. If they can have the Super Bowl on various channels every year why don't they do this to the Olympics when they debut. The main reason why NBC got rights to the Olympics rather than ABC FOX and CBS was I think more money and since NBC wants to get their hands on almost every sport "remember when NBC was gonna get broadcast rights to Indy Car racing and CART racing?" I think NBC saw the Olympics as a huge money deal and it paid off because in their mind the years the Olympics are on they score huge ratings for NBC in general

NBC/USA Network Coverage of Paris Olympics Registers 12 of Top 19 Primetime Shows in 2024, Excluding NFL

Total Viewership Average Up 77% from Tokyo Olympics after 12 Days

https://www.nbcsports.com/pressbox/press-releases/paris-olympics-on-nbc-and-usa-network-dominating-primetime-in-2024

Most-Watched Primetime Shows, 2024, Nielsen-only (excluding NFL)
Show, Date
Avg. Viewers
ESPN College Football Playoff Championship Game, 1/8
25.0 million*
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 7/28
20.0 million*
ABC Academy Awards, 3/10
19.5 million
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 7/30
18.8 million*
ESPN College Football Playoff Semifinal, 1/1
18.7 million*
CBS Grammy Awards, 2/4
17.1 million
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 8/1
16.6 million*
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 7/29
16.4 million*
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 8/5
16.1 million*
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 8/4
15.5 million*
NBC 2024 Paris Olympics, 7/26
15.1 million
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 8/3
15.0 million*
TBS NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, 4/8
14.8 million*
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 7/27
14.7 million*
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 7/31
14.6 million*
ESPN NCAA Women’s Basketball Semifinal, 4/5
14.4 million*
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 8/2
14.3 million*
TBS NCAA Men’s Basketball Semifinal, 4/6
14.1 million*
NBC/USA 2024 Paris Olympics, 8/6
13.9 million*

Source: Nielsen, Live + Same Day Data; Excludes Pre- and Post-Shows

*Viewership across multiple television networks

Beginning with the Opening Ceremony, NBCUniversal has a posted 12-day Total Audience Delivery average of 32.2 million viewers across the combined live Paris Prime (2-5 p.m. ET) and U.S. primetime (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) time periods – up 77% from Tokyo (18.2 million).

Combined Olympics average finishes over 30 million (https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/08/olympics-viewership-tops-30-million-combined-nbc-womens-basketball-final/)

by Jon Lewis

To return Olympic viewership to the exalted levels of London, it took a slew of gold medals for the highest-profile Americans, an iconic host city with world-famous landmarks, and a methodology heavy on combined viewership.

NBC (https://awfulannouncing.com/category/nbc)’s “primetime” coverage of the Paris Summer Olympics (https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/tag/2024-paris-olympics/) averaged a combined (https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/tag/olympics-ratings/) 30.7 million viewers across the full suite of NBC (https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/tag/olympics-on-nbc/) platforms (per Nielsen and Adobe Analytics), a figure that includes a live daytime window and primetime replay — up 82% from the COVID-delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 (16.9M). With a streaming average of 4.1 million viewers measured by Adobe Analytics, the Nielsen-only average would come in around 26.6 million.

Paris was the first Olympics (https://awfulannouncing.com/tag/2024-paris-olympics) in which NBC aired its usual primetime fare live during the afternoon. As a result, the network issued a combined afternoon and primetime figure encompassing live coverage from 2-5 PM ET and a primetime replay from 8-11. The combined figure includes all of the NBC networks carrying Olympic coverage during those respective windows, and thus a number of events that would not have typically counted toward primetime — for example, basketball and soccer — are included in this year’s average.

The marked shift in methodology renders any comparisons to past Olympics shaky at best. This year’s average is nominally on par with London in 2012 (31.1M), but that average was for a single primetime window on a single network measured by a single company that solely measured in-home viewing.

As noted in a a fuller Olympics recap published Monday, NBC was the beneficiary of vastly improved conditions over the previous Olympics in Tokyo — including Simone Biles’ return to gold medal form and victories for many of the highest-profile Americans, from Sha’Carri Richardson and Stephen Curry in their Olympic debuts, to Noah Lyles and Katie Ledecky. Add to that the iconic host city of Paris and the return of fans for the first time since 2018.

One event not included in the primetime average was Sunday’s United States-France women’s basketball gold medal game, which aired in a morning window and averaged 7.8 million viewers across NBC and Peacock — down slightly from 7.9 million for the 2021 game, which aired in primetime.

The United States’ narrow win, which peaked with 10.9 million from 11-11:30 AM ET, ranks fourth among women’s basketball games this year — trailing the South Carolina-Iowa NCAA women’s basketball title game (19.5M), Iowa-UConn in the Final Four (14.4M) and Iowa-LSU in the Elite Eight (12.3M).

As for the other gold medal games, viewership for Saturday’s United States-France men’s basketball final has been updated from 19.5 to 20.3 million, with the peak audience increasing from 22.7 to 23.9 million. The updated figure surpasses the 2019 NCAA men’s basketball final between Virginia and Texas Tech (19.6M) to rank as the largest basketball audience since Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals (Cavaliers-Warriors: 24.5M). (All NBC figures are a combined total of Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, while all other network estimates are Nielsen only.)

In addition, viewership for the USA-Brazil women’s soccer final has been updated from 9.0 to 9.4 million, still the highest for a gold medal game in that sport since 2004.


NBC continues to benefit from combining Olympics viewership (https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/08/nbc-olympics-viewership-combination-daytime-primetime/)

NBC's Summer Olympics viewership continues to benefit from any number of winning combinations.

Majority of NBC’s Olympic audience is still watching in primetime (https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/08/olympics-viewership-primetime-afternoon-nbc/)

The majority of NBC's Olympic audience continues to watch in primetime.

NBC scores second-largest combined audience of Olympics Sunday (https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/08/olympics-viewership-sunday-second-largest-audience-noah-lyles-100m/)

On a day highlighted by Noah Lyles' thrilling win in the men's 100m final, NBC delivered its second-largest combined audience...