The 2024 Paris Olympics was a huge success for NBC and its streaming platform Peacock. After years of the Olympics being in decline in popularity in ratings thanks to a number of factors including the COVID-19 pandemic, unfriendly timezones, and declining interest, the games this summer saw a huge rebound. And that momentum clearly carried over into this year’s Paralympics that followed.
Similar to their Olympic plans, NBC offered comprehensive coverage across broadcast television, cable, and streaming for the Paralympics. And according to NBC, the 2024 Paralympic Games drew a number of records. That includes the most watched cable broadcast, second most-watched overall broadcast, and by far the most streamed Paralympics in network history.
Here is more via NBC Sports:
NBCUniversal’s unprecedented coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, presented by Toyota, generated numerous U.S. viewership milestones, reaching a Paralympic record 15.4 million total viewers across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, CNBC, and Telemundo during the 12-day event from Aug. 28-Sept. 8., including the second most-watched Paralympic Games telecast on record and the most-watched Paralympics cable telecast on record.
Paris Paralympic viewership on NBC and Peacock averaged a TAD of 1.2 million viewers, up 31% vs. Tokyo (888,000 viewers). Primetime coverage on NBC on Sunday, Sept. 1, from 7-9 p.m. ET, averaged 1.8 million viewers, according to official live + same day data from Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics, making it the second-most watched Paralympics telecast on record, peaking at 2.5 million viewers. The program included highlights of the Opening Ceremony and the first two days of competition.
[…]
Paris Paralympics live coverage on USA Network (approx. 90 hours; weekdays during the morning/afternoon) averaged 162,000 viewers, up 113% vs. the Tokyo average on NBC Sports Network (one telecast on USA Network in 2021). USA Network’s live coverage on Monday, Sept. 2, from 5 a.m.-5 p.m. ET, delivered a TAD of 222,000 viewers, making it the most-watched Paralympics cable telecast on record (since 2012).
Led by Peacock’s comprehensive coverage, Paris 2024 was the most-streamed Paralympic Games of all time, with 207 million total minutes, 11 times as many as Tokyo. By Day 2 (Aug. 29) of the Paris Paralympics, the Games had surpassed the live minutes total for the entire Tokyo Paralympics (18.6 million), with every day of Paris surpassing the previous most live streamed day (1.7 million minutes for Tokyo on Aug. 27, 2021).
While these numbers are impressive across the board, the one that pops off the page the most is the incredible streaming numbers that are similar to what we saw through NBC’s Paris Olympics coverage earlier this summer. An 11-time increase for this year’s Paralympics versus the last edition in Tokyo three years ago is simply remarkable. Similarly, the 2024 Paris Olympics on Peacock drew more streaming viewership than all of NBC’s previous Olympic broadcasts combined.
Of course, Peacock and NBC’s streaming strategy is a galaxy away from what it was eight or even three years ago. While all things aren’t equal across sports and the impact of streaming varies across the sports media industry, this may be the most powerful example of what streaming is capable of providing. If anything, this year’s Olympics and Paralympics coverage show that streaming is certainly one of the pillars of NBC’s offerings moving forward.
