One of the emerging live online streaming services gave NBC some good news stemming from the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. A majority of Hulu’s viewers, 63% of its subscriber base, watched NBCUniversal’s coverage whether it was live or on-demand.
Hulu provided some more details on the Olympic viewing. It amounted to about 15 hours per viewer and totaled about 6.5 million hours of coverage streamed throughout the two-and-a-half weeks of the Olympics.
Multichannel News reports that Hulu provided a portal for viewers to pick certain events to watch and get alerts as to when they would air. In addition, Hulu says snowboarding, skiing and ski jumping were among the most popular with male and female subscribers.
As with those watching the Olympics on linear TV through traditional methods, Hulu’s top market was out West: Santa Barbara, California. However, the other top markets watching the Olympics were spread out with Burlington, Vermont; Twin Falls, Idaho; Duluth, Minnesota; and North Platte, Nebraska rounding out the top five local markets.
But these numbers still can’t offset the fact that NBC still experienced the least-watched Olympics ever. According to CNBC, Hulu has an estimated 450,000 subscribers for its live streaming service. But Hulu itself said it had more than 17 million total subscribers for both its combined streaming video on-demand service and live streaming.
Still, this gives some encouraging signs to NBC that people were watching the Olympics online, albeit in smaller numbers than the critical mass that traditional television can provide. But as people turn to live streaming, the Peacock can take some solace knowing that no matter what platform, they’ll get viewers for big events — just maybe not with the same numbers as TV can provide.