Olympics Coverage Helped NBC Win 2023-2024 Ratings War
By Movieguide® Contributor
NBC has triumphed over the rest of the networks in this year’s ratings war, thanks to its Olympics coverage and hit reality competition show AMERICA’S GOT TALENT.
“The network’s primetime telecasts of the Summer Olympics, which averaged some 14 million viewers nightly from July 26-Aug. 11, moved NBC into first place for the full year, measured from Sept. 25, 2023, to Sept. 22, 2024,” The Hollywood Reporter explained. “The Olympics and other summer programming helped NBC overtake CBS, which won the traditional September-to-May season.”
THR pointed to both the Paris Olympics coverage and AMERICA’S GOT TALENT as the reason why NBC beat out the other networks.
“The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris drew a combined average of 30.6 million viewers across NBCU’s constellation of platforms, marking an 82% jump in viewership compared to the Tokyo Games and making the Games the most-streamed Olympics of all time,” CNN reported.
Movieguide® previously reported on how the Paris Olympics increased NBC’s ratings:
Just a few days into the Olympics in July, overall TV use jumped 2.3% from the previous month.
“That’s a rarity for the month, when usage levels typically drop as broadcast and cable TV slows down,” The Hollywood Reporter said. “This year, however, the Olympics reversed that trend — even with only three days of coverage from Paris included in Nielsen’s monthly Gauge snapshot (the measurement covers July 1-28). Broadcast networks had 20.3 percent of TV use for the month, up from their all-time low of 20 percent in July 2023 — and for the week that the Olympics began, that number rose to 22 percent.”
Peacock jumped a massive 33% as it scored 4.5 billion viewing minutes in the Games’ first weekend, with 2.5 billion minutes in the opening ceremony alone — a huge success for parent company NBCUniversal.
On average over the 2023-24 season, NBC averaged about 4.9 million primetime viewers. For comparison, CBS pulled in 4.7 million, ABC took third with 3.9 million and Fox brought in 2.8 million.
Deadline added that NBC not only won the overall 2023-24 season but also “the 18-49 demo for all programs.”
“CBS was the most-watched network when taking into account programming between September and May,” the outlet noted.
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