NBCUniversal continues to attain strong multiplatform viewership across its presentation of the Olympic Games Paris 2024, amassing an average of 34 million people watching the prime time coverage over the first five days. During the second weekend of the games, this windfall continued with a total audience delivery of 34.6 million viewers for Saturday’s action across NBC, Peacock and key NBCUniversal platforms, according to custom fast national data from Nielsen Media Research and Adobe Analytics.
The metric more than doubles the audience for the comparable Saturday of competition during the Tokyo Olympics, which were played in 2021 due to the global pandemic. Moreover, it is the third-best total audience delivery throughout the Paris Olympics, trailing only coverage from last Sunday (41.5 million) and last Tuesday (34.7 million).
NBCUniversal continued its Olympics coverage on Sunday and amassed a total audience delivery of 35.4 million viewers, according to custom fast national data from Nielsen Media Research and Adobe Analytics. Compared to the Tokyo Olympics, this represents more than double the audience for the comparable Sunday of competition. Highlights on the day included Noah Lyles’ gold medal win in a photo finish, Suni Lee winning a bronze medal on the uneven bars and Bobby Finke setting a world record in the 1500m. Peacock and NBCUniversal digital platforms assembled 4.5 million viewers on the day.
NBCUniversal has garnered a nine-day total audience delivery average of 33.0 million viewers across its combined prime time programming windows in Paris (2-5 p.m. EST) and the United States (8-11 p.m. EST/PST), which is up 80% from the numbers gleaned from Tokyo. Competition on Saturday included Simone Biles winning a gold medal in the vault, Katie Ledecky securing a victory in the 800m freestyle for the fourth consecutive Summer Olympics and Ryan Crouser winning gold in the shot put for the third consecutive Summer Olympics. The broadcast of the Olympic Games on Friday attained an average of 27.4 million viewers, which is up 58% year-over-year, according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch.
Earlier on Saturday, afternoon coverage of the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team victory over Puerto Rico averaged 9.4 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, and an additional 3.5 million viewers watched the 6 p.m. EST encore presentation that aired on USA Network and Peacock. Coverage of the Olympic Games as a whole on Saturday was streamed by 4.4 million viewers on Peacock and NBCUniversal digital platforms. Combined with WWE SummerSlam, Peacock accrued its third-best usage day of all time, finishing behind only the exclusive presentation of the AFC Wild Card Game in January and Olympic Games coverage last Sunday.
Spanning from the opening Saturday of competition to last Thursday, USA Network has been the most-watched sports and entertainment cable network in total day average viewership. The U.S. Men’s Basketball Team victory over South Sudan had a total audience delivery of 4.3 million viewers last Wednesday, leading the way in the aforementioned duration. The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team victory over Germany last Tuesday had a total audience delivery (TAD) of 4.2 million viewers, while the team’s game against Japan on Saturday amassed a TAD of 3.0 million.
