The Paris Olympics have been a soaring success for NBC by just about any metric, so it’s hard to forget all the questions around viewership and engagement just a few weeks ago.
In an interview on the StreamTime Sports podcast released Wednesday , NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel went deep on the “great relief” of the audience bounceback for this year’s Olympics after the “scary” numbers NBC saw for Tokyo three years ago.
“It’s a great relief,” Zenkel told host Nick Meachem. “I am a true believer in the power and the magic of the Olympics … to capture and assemble interest and an audience in the United States. It was scary to see numbers fall as they had. But for me, not having fans in the stands and access for our crews and our commentators to be able to tell the stories of the city in the context of the Games, was really undermining.”
Zenkel said NBC knew certain audience behavior shifts on display during the less-watched Tokyo Games were permanent. However the network was banking on the Paris setting and the return of the community around the Olympics to generate more attention and storytelling in 2024.
“The question was, even when you put the Olympics fully back together, and you bring the families and you bring the spirit and you bring the world back, has the behavior shifted so much that bringing them back to a more traditional, let’s come together around a singular program, would that happen?” Zenkel said.
“If I had any lingering concern, it was did the behavior shift so much during this period, for so long a period of time … was that going to have an impact? So it is incredibly gratifying and somewhat relieving to see that the Olympic audience that we knew for the decades that we’d been broadcasting … was there.”
NBC has already pulled more than 30 million viewers multiple times already its primetime coverage. During the day, NBC Sports president Rick Cordella recently said Peacock is “regularly” pulling 5 million viewers . NBC reported this week streaming consumption of this year’s Olympics already outpaced any other Olympics .
Zenkel explained how Peacock has helped viewers flock back to the Games compared with 2021 when the platform was still very new.
“The Olympics is so complicated, with thousands and thousands of hours,” Zenkel said. “You’re trying to navigate and guide the audience through and around that vast offering. It was difficult for Peacock to get launched as a platform and to build the interface necessary to support something as massive as the Olympics.”
It’s not just the bustling Paris cityscape or family reaction shots on the broadcast. Full stands and a return to regular life compared with Tokyo allowed NBC to deploy influencers and content creators to this year’s Games to draw in new fans and increase online engagement.
From Alex Cooper and Snoop Dogg to countless online creators, NBC isn’t solely counting on its sports broadcasts to generate an audience.
“In some cases, it will be on NBC or on Peacock, and in some cases it will be on Instagram,” Zenkel explained. “And either way, that’s fine. We’d prefer they come over to NBC, but we want them to continue to engage. We want to be relevant. We want the next generation of viewers, who may be short-form viewers today, but will evolve into longer-form viewers.”
NBC is counting on the Paris Olympics to add subscribers to Peacock, sell ads, and continue building its brand ahead of another NFL season and the start of its NBA contract next fall. But none of that would be possible with Tokyo-level viewership.
[ Streamtime Sports Podcast ]
The post NBC Olympics exec: ‘Great relief’ to see audience return for Paris Games after ‘scary’ Tokyo ratings appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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