Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony Delivers Nearly 29 Million Viewers — Grade It!

NBCUniversal’s presentation of the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony on Friday had a Total Audience Delivery of 28.6 million viewers, including live afternoon coverage and a primetime replay.

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That marks a 60% increase over the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony (which was actually held in July 2021) and the largest audience for a Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony since London 2012.

On Peacock, the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony— featuring performances by Lady Gaga and Celine Dion — emerged as the No. 1 entertainment event in the four-year-old streamer’s history.

Paris Olympics streaming consumption across NBCUniversal platforms exceeded 1 billion minutes through Friday — a number six times greater than the Tokyo Olympics (through a comparable time frame).

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“Last night’s Opening Ceremony, one of the most ambitious and complex in Olympic history, was a spectacle for those in attendance in Paris, delivered a huge audience across our NBCU platforms, and set records for Peacock,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said in a statement. “Thanks to the tireless effort of our production and engineering teams, and extensive promotion, we are off to a strong start that is in line with the expectations of our NBC stations, and distribution and advertising partners. We are in great position as we look forward to the next two weeks of competition.”

Up north (and I share this only because that press release just landed as well), one in three Canadians  –more than 13.3 million viewers — watched at least part of CBC/Radio-Canada’s coverage of the Opening Ceremony on CBC and Radio-Canada networks and broadcast partners TSN, Sportsnet and RDS, with an additional 1.9 million streams on CBC/Radio-Canada’s digital platforms.

What did you think of the Opening Ceremony — Lady Gaga, can-can dancers, Celine Dion and all? Grade it below!

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