IOC: Paris 2024 Coverage ‘Attracting Record Audiences on TV and Digital’

IOC officials are understandably exuberant over media coverage of the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, reporting a record amount of content and viewers worldwide.

For Paris 2024, host broadcaster Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) is producing over 11,000 hours of content—more than any previous Olympic Games, with the record output across both TV and digital platforms representing a 15.8% increase on the amount of content produced for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

“This includes more athlete-centric coverage and behind- the-scenes material, as well as cinematic lenses with a shallow depth of field to enhance the overall visual experience for the viewer,” the IOC said. “In addition, new dynamic, data-driven graphics are being used to display athletes’ performances in minute detail, while a multitude of camera angles are helping to fully immerse fans in their favorite sports. The immersive coverage being produced by OBS is already attracting record audiences on TV and digital platforms for media rights holders around the world.”

“The audiences benefit from the incredible images going to the world from Olympic Broadcasting Services and our Media Rights-Holders,” said IOC President Thomas Bach on Friday. “We are on track for more than half the world’s population to follow the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

For the host nation, the Opening Ceremony broadcast by France Télévisions attracted a record 23.4 million viewers, representing an 83.3% audience share, according to the IOC.

In the United States, NBC and Peacock registered the most-watched Opening Ceremony for an Olympic Games edition since London 2012, with 28.6 million viewers, while the total minutes consumed by the end of the opening weekend surpassed 1.1 billion across Telemundo, Universo and Peacock streaming and social media platforms, representing a 65% increase compared to the same stage of Tokyo 2020.

Warner Bros. Discovery, which is broadcasting the Games in Europe and on its streaming platforms Max and discovery+, says its total unique streaming viewers for Paris 2024 had already exceeded those from the whole of Tokyo 2020 after just two days of coverage. Across both Max and discovery+, Paris 2024 has also already driven almost one billion streaming minutes, more than seven times higher than at the same point of Tokyo 2020 and already representing 75 per cent of the total minutes from those Games, the IOC reported.