It seems like an eternity, before Leon Marchand saw a country cheering his every shot at La Défense Arena, before Simone Biles made us get out of our seats to watch the women’s gymnastics all-around competition, before Steph Curry put to the French public. to sleep in the Bercy Arena, and before the United States women’s basketball team won its eighth consecutive gold medal, a question threatened to haunt the Paris Games when the world arrived in the City of Light.
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Could the Olympic Games pick up their pace?
Before Paris, Olympic viewership had particularly declined in recent cycles. The COVID-displaced Tokyo Olympics averaged 15. 6 million viewers per night in 2021 across NBC’s various virtual and television platforms. The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics had an average of 11. 4 million people across all platforms, making it the least-watched Olympics in the modern era. This is a sharp drop from the average of 19. 8 million recorded at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
But the Olympics have flourished again in the French capital. From the opening rite through Saturday, NBCUniversal recorded a 16-day overall viewership average of 31. 3 million live viewers on Paris Prime (2 p. m. to 5 p. m. ET) and prime time in the United States (8 p. m. to 11 p. m. ET/PT). The final figures will be known this week. Some viewership insights are simply extraordinary, adding up to 12. 7 million viewership on NBC and Peacock live on a Tuesday afternoon to watch Biles and Team USA. The U. S. won gold in gymnastics.
As we have noted at all times, there is a vital context: NBC has consolidated its numbers so that the Paris Games have a live audience from 2 p. m. to five p. m. And with NBC, Peacock, USA Network, CNBC, E!, Paris Extra 1, Paris Extra 2 and other NBCU virtual platforms, as well as US primetime audiences on NBC, Peacock and USA Network. based on traditional Nielsen fast national numbers and numerical data from Adobe Analytics). The network said the revised method was a more accurate way to provide viewership data for Paris, as audiences had never before had the opportunity to watch the fully produced live Olympics on NBC or Peacock. the day in addition to the classic prime time (which was an arranged provision since the day of the festival had ended in Paris, six hours before US Eastern Time). That’s how they sold it to advertisers.
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“We have made the decision to be progressive in our thinking about how we will deliver the Games,” Mark Lazarus, president of NBCUniversal Media Group, said in an interview due last week. “We have chosen to modernize our production and provision of the Games. When we replaced our method of provision, we replaced the method in collaboration with the marketing community.
I think those Games were the most productive Olympics of my life, and I say that as someone who covered the Olympics in Salt Lake City, Athens, Turin, Beijing, Vancouver, London, and Sochi. Unlike covering the Games in person, I experienced those Games through NBC and Peacock, and the combination of being able to follow the events live on Peacock and elsewhere and then watch a curated presentation was a wonderful experience.
With the Olympic flame over Paris now extinguished, here are 20 media reports about the Paris Games.
1. NBC relied heavily on celebrities for its presentation, and this is to be expected in the long-running Olympics. The opening ceremony featured Kelly Clarkson and Peyton Manning. The final rite featured Jimmy Fallon. I couldn’t go a day without seeing Snoop Dogg. There were countless photos of other notable people (hey, John Travolta) in the crowd.
There were times when celebrity politics seemed too loud, but NBC doesn’t apologize. They see the Olympics as a combination of sports and entertainment, especially when jet lag forces live prime-time sports to be offered.
“We’ve been looking into what has gone well and what hasn’t gone well in the last few rounds of the Games, and we’ve been thinking about how we can increase the Q-score price of our stream,” Lazarus said. “Now Paris has done some of that on its own. Some of the other people who are here, we have nothing to do with their presence here. We don’t live off them, but we take pictures of them in the crowd if applicable to our audience or appeal to the American audience.
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2. Coverage of NBC’s “Gold Zone,” a showcase promoted through “NFL RedZone” that airs daily from 7 a. m. to 5 p. m. to five p. m. on Peacock, an addictive and ultra-modern way to watch the Games. It ranked among the top five most-watched Olympic titles on Peacock and a piece of technological good fortune considering all the factors at play.
Scott Hanson, who has hosted “NFL RedZone” since its inaugural season in 2009 and is also host of NFL Network, has been a genius rookie, and NBC has enjoyed positive press thanks to that resolution alone. Other presenters Matt Iseman, Andrew Siciliano and Jac Collinsworth provided the high-energy metabolism needed for the production. “Gold Zone,” one of the big hits of those games for NBCU.
3. For me, the most productive broadcast medalists were the main hosts of the track and field competition: Leigh Diffey of NBC and Rob Walker of the Olympic Broadcasting Service (the global broadcast). Diffey was phenomenal in his decisions, especially when Quincy Hall won the men’s 400 meters.
An EPIC return to win GOLD in the 400 meters! #JuegosOlympiquesdeParis
? NBC and Peacock pic. twitter. com/qQJqfxrH9n
– NBC Olympics and Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 7, 2024
The same goes for Cole Hocker’s victory in the men’s 1,500 meters.
Cole Hocker makes a leap in the final stretch for the OLYMPIC GOLD.
? Paris Olympic #Juegos on NBC and Peacock pic. twitter. com/4ElH2uxckn
– NBC Olympics and Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 7, 2024
yeah, he missed Noah Lyles’ call, but I give him grace for things like that because he doesn’t get a kill key like I do. NBC’s tracking and box organization of Diffey, Sanya Richards-Ross, Ato Boldon, Kara Goucher, Trey Hardee, Paul Swangard and Lewis Johnson were on point during the competition. Walker’s calls may be heard on Peacock if you watch the coverage, and the Brit really knows how to call a race. Additionally, Noah Eagle and LaChina Robinson were sensational as they described the Americans’ 67-66 victory over France in the women’s basketball gold medal game on Sunday.
4. Laurie Hernandez demonstrated an innate gift for communicating gymnastics to a wide audience, combined with genuine enthusiasm for the good fortune of her former teammates (she and Biles won gold in the team festival at the Rio Olympics in 2016). It was a wonderful visual experience if you watched women’s gymnastics live on Peacock.
5. Je idea NBC’s swimming media policy was incredibly mild with revelations in recent months about dozens of positive doping tests among Chinese swimmers. It’s a global story and one that was significant on the final day of swimming when China won gold in the men’s 4× 100m medley relay. He deserved more than the superficial politics we won in the primetime broadcast of NBC’s swim competition last Sunday night.
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6. There will be a significant amount of NBA streaming jobs as NBC and Amazon enter the market in 2025 as media rights holders. Given his Hall of Fame profile and performances in Paris, Dwyane Wade will get a serious look from social media if he’s interested. Wade said he worked with a speech and voice coach to prepare.
“When I was asked to do this, I considered it probably one of the most demanding situations of my 2024 calendar year,” Wade said. “… I immersed myself in it, understanding that there were going to be many things that were going to be learned as I went. … Being able to sit right next to Noah (Eagle). . . I definitely asked him a lot of questions about this world, things I didn’t know. Something as undeniable as “Hey brother, what does the number 1 mean?” What is a number one team?I don’t know those things. I’m not afraid to say what I don’t know. But above all to be myself. That’s the only thing everyone told me, and that’s what I told myself when I signed up to do this. I’m going to take my basketball logo to the airwaves, understanding that, as in life, other people will love it. Other people may not like it.
NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said no decisions have been made about NBC’s ability to cover NBA for Mike Tirico and Eagle, who will play significant play-by-play voices. (Tyricus will be number 1. ) But NBC now has a date with Wade, and that deserves to matter seriously if Wade makes the decision that he wants to do this. NBC also wants several analysts, so Wade wouldn’t want to be on the number one team initially.
“We’re going to come down this fall and communicate about skill in the pregame program, communicate about skill in our analyst poions play-by-play,” Cordella said. “We want several because we have games 3 nights a week. “
7. Expect NBC to adopt the multi-view feature for the Olympics that is part of the Peacock experience and use it for its Premier League coverage.
“It makes more sense when there’s a lot going on at the same time and you don’t get that with Big Ten football or one NFL game at a time,” Cordella said. “But for the Premier League with Saturday’s morning windows, you might be expecting to see that. I don’t know if we’ll release it or not, so don’t stop it there. . . But definitely, over time, you will see this product feature with this sport.
8. La biggest wonder for NBC in terms of viewership was how many other people they were able to attract during the day of their coverage. One informed assumption would be in part the accumulation of flight from home in a post-COVID world.
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“We were able to gather a giant audience,” Cordella said. “For example, a men’s basketball game at 11:50 a. m. m. It attracted 11 million viewers. Peacock gained around five million streamers per day. This is probably the greatest wonder we have ever had.
The most notable evening viewership came on Saturday when NBC and Peacock averaged 19. 5 million viewers for the United States men’s basketball team’s thrilling 98-87 win over France. It is the most-watched gold medal match since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The game peaked with 22. 7 million viewers between five p. m. and five:1 five p. m. ET in the fourth quarter of the game.
9. How did NBC executives understand those who were disruptive during parts of the opening ceremony?
“In 7,000 hours, there will be other people who don’t like something, and I appreciate that and respect that,” Lazarus said. “As far as the opening ceremonies go, we can get a glimpse of what’s going to happen. However, there are some things that we didn’t know were going to happen. I think, in my view, we documented the discussions. We haven’t commented on the debatable things. As long as we assume the role of an organization that “Only shows the debates presented through the organizing committee, and we do not comment on them, I don’t think we have done anything that would create controversy. . . for ourselves. “
10. I asked my X subscribers to give their opinion on what they thought of NBC/Peacock’s policy at the Paris Games. Some interesting answers here.
11. As I reported last week after speaking with NBC Sports executives, I would be surprised if Snoop Dogg didn’t return for the long-running Olympics.
12. NBC will have a US-centric view, and understandably so. But it especially misled the audience when it came to the primetime politics of the final day of the women’s heptathlon. Belgium’s Nafissatou Thiam won her third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the women’s heptathlon. – a supernatural feat in the game – but that was lightly disputed as media policy focused heavily on American Anna Hall.
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Hall is a phenomenal athlete, has a wonderful story, and played a vital role in NBC’s marketing promotion leading up to the Games. She will be a star in Los Angeles within 4 years. So it’s not about the media policy she received, there simply had to be a way to give the audience more facts about Thiam in prime time, given that she is an exclusive athlete in her event.
13. The guilty user of NBC’s Olympic production is Molly Solomon, executive producer and president of NBC’s Olympic production. She is the first woman to hold this position. Since covering the Olympics, I’m not sure I’ve noticed that NBCU got more overall buzz on social media than Paris, and that counts as classic entertainment.
Of course, this has to do with how the festival went (it was a great Olympics for the United States), but also how the audience perceived the production, adding how viewer-friendly itArraySolomon is being built as the user who will guide NBCU in what will be its most important Olympic Games and its highest expected production of all time, the Los Angeles Games, in 4 years.
14. Will other people stay with Peacock after the Games are over? The knowledge will come in a few months. Cordella said 70% of those who signed up for the NFL wild card game in January were with Peacock two months after that game.
“We have knowledge about (people) who come to play sports and stay,” he said. “We’re also lucky that it’s mid-August and we’re heading into football season with Big Ten games, NFL games on Peacock, and the NFL-exclusive game on opening weekend Friday in Brazil (Eagles-Packers). “
15. I really agree about how NBC presented the opening ceremony, and I would like to see athletes or journalists who are a little more classic as a part of it, as opposed to big celebrities. (I don’t think NBC will stick to my wishes here for Italy in 2026 and Los Angeles)
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In the opening rite of the Olympics, a force of nature disappointed the plan, but the gist
16. Lazarus said the Olympics would bring cash for NBCU. “This will exceed our profit targets and constitute more gains than we’ve ever had at the Olympics,” he said. “We’ll make big profits, and I. ” I’m sure at some point we’ll communicate that on an earnings call. “
Lewis Johnson has been an Olympic reporter for NBC since the Sydney Games (his main concentration for the Summer Games is track and field and boxing) and constantly responds to viewers’ expectations by asking them enlightening questions about why things happen. they occur. He also does what someone in his position deserves to do: he leverages his role as a member of the host broadcast team and uses that access to discover important points for the audience, as he did with Noah Lyles in Paris. In every Olympiad I say to myself: this guy is doing a wonderful job.
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18. Rowdy Gaines said the 2028 Olympics will be his last as an Olympic commentator. NBC used Michael Phelps as a roving correspondent for the Paris Games, but when he was specifically assigned as a swimming commentator, he was wonderful to the audience. NBC deserves to push for Phelps to upgrade Gaines, and they both deserve to swim in Los Angeles.
19. It was the live final rite that NBC’s celebrity push was brutal for Olympic viewers. Ask yourself, what did Jimmy Fallon upload here for viewers? The boy asked Katie Ledecky, “When are you going home or swimming home?” » It’s about cross-promotion rather than audience value.
Terry Gannon, Tara Lipinski, Johnny Weir and Tirico were more than enough for it. Moreover, in Tyricum: thus a mistake is temporarily and definitively recognized.
20. Getty Images photographer Hector Vivas, take a bow. You too, Ezra Shaw. And also take a look at those photos.
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Paris Olympics in pictures: 32 captivating images on the occasion of the Summer Games
(Top photo via NBC correspondent Snoop Dogg: Carl Recine/Getty Images)