Olympics Drive Summer TV Surge With Rare Ratings
By Movieguide® Contributor
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.
Movieguide® reported:
Vulture observed that Peacock’s performance greatly improved since the platform’s 2021 and 2022 Games coverage. The Games set a record with 23.5 billion minutes of viewing time on Peacock and NBC’s other outlets.
“That’s 40 percent higher than the combined total of 16.8 billion minutes for all prior Olympics (summer and winter) in the streaming era. Were the Paris games considered a streaming series, they would likely rank among the top five titles of 2024 so far, based on Nielsen’s streaming metrics.”
“Streaming platforms collectively had another huge month, hitting a record share of TV use for the second straight time,” The Hollywood Reporter said. “Streamers had 41.4 percent of all TV use, up from 40.3 percent in June. YouTube also became the first streaming platform to grab more than 10 percent of all TV use, hitting 10.4 percent. July had four of the 10 biggest single days for streaming since Nielsen began tracking streaming use in 2020.”
Disney+ grabbed 2.1% of all TV viewership. BLUEY alone had 4.3 million viewing minutes. Amazon Prime had 3.4% of all viewership, and Roku Channel had 1.6%.
Cable news program viewership jumped by 23% compared to June due to the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
The Hollywood Reporter shared the total figures for July:
Streaming: 41.4 percent of all TV use
Cable: 26.7 percent
Broadcast: 20.3 percent
Other: 11.6 percent
Total streaming ratings were 5% higher in July than in June. YouTube was the top streaming service with 10.4% of the viewership. Netflix came in second at 8.4%, and Prime Video in third at 3.4%.
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