NBCU’s Olympic Opening Ceremony Audience Jumps 60% To 28.6 Million

NBCUniversal said the opening ceremony for the Paris Summer Olympics had a Total Audience of 28.6 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, which is a rebound from the low ratings from the COVID-delayed Tokyo Games.

NBCU had been expecting ratings to be better than Tokyo and the audience was 60% higher than the disappointing 2021 Summer Games.

The viewership also topped the colorful 2018 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics by 8%, but fell just short of the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

NBCU had another 666,000 for its Spanish-language coverage on Telemundo Deportes.

In terms of streaming, Peacock had more than 2.5 million viewers for the opening Ceremonies. Streaming of all Olympic content topped 1 billion minutes through Friday — six times the total for the Tokyo Olympics.

Also Read: Full Coverage of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics

No word on how many people signed up for Peacock to stream the Olympics.

“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. “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.”

NBCU’s Total Audience Delivery is based upon live-plus-same-day custom Fast National figures from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics. Official viewership will be available on Monday.

Brands advertising in the opening ceremony generated 320% greater search volume than brands in the Tokyo opening ceremony, NBCU said.