IOC set to release comprehensive Olympic ratings report in November – here’s what we know, and don’t

The International Olympic Committee tells Around the Rings it will be November before a detailed report on global viewership figures for Tokyo 2020 will be available.

But there are some numbers already published that could provide some clues as to what could come, provided they are taken with a bit of context.

Spectator numbers were reported to have taken a significant hit in the United States compared to past editions; with NBC, the national broadcaster of the Games, reporting an average primetime viewership of just 15.5 million across TV and online platforms.

The figure represents a 42% decline in ratings from the 2016 Olympics in Rio (26.7 million). While this could be attributable to time differences, the similarly located Beijing 2008 Games (27.2 million) had even more American viewers than Rio 2016 did – implying that the reasons for audiences tuning out the Games may come down to more systemic factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the unusual timeframe.

“When you look at the numbers in general and the impact that Covid has had on sports, we were prepared for these numbers... For better or worse, I really do believe the pandemic and postponement impacted these Games”, Pete Bevacqua, Chairman of NBC Sports, told the Wall Street Journal shortly after the Games on August 9th.

Political factors are likewise seen by some to have had a negative impact on viewership. A poll conducted by Monmouth University just before the Games showed that 36% of Americans were less interested in the Tokyo Games than the Games in 2016. A third (34%) of those people gave their distaste for athletes’ political activism as the main reason, which was more than were less interested because of the coronavirus pandemic (30%).

However, a silver lining for NBC is that over 5.6 billion minutes of the Olympics were streamed by viewers online – a 25% increase over 2016 – which indicates more viewers are switching from watching sport live to digitally streaming it on-demand. This makes it difficult to compare the two values, as live ratings are calculated per person, whereas streaming viewership is measured by minute.

NBC is also known to have increased its advertising revenue relative to 2016 – while the exact figure is not known, the network revealed in June that its earnings for Tokyo had surpassed the $1.2 billion it made from the Games in Rio.

As such, it may be tempting to definitively state that viewership in the United States collapsed based on television ratings, but a more detailed, holistic analysis of streaming figures from the IOC or NBC itself would appear to be needed to confirm that.

“Fixation on prime time audience numbers needs to change. In the evolving digital media environment what is now important is how many watched over the total of Games across all devices and how much”, Michael R. Payne, the IOC’s former Marketing and Broadcast Rights Director, said on Twitter in response to an Economist article alleging that the Olympics in Tokyo were “the least-watched in decades”.

Across several other world markets, strong and sometimes record numbers of Games watchers have further challenged the notion that the Games were a ratings failure. Available information logically suggests that audiences in Asia were high: Nikkei Asia, for instance, reported that viewership of the opening ceremony in India was six times that for Rio 2016, and that three Olympic events were the most watched sports broadcasts in China since the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

The Games were likewise a resounding success in host nation Japan, which saw nine out of every ten residents tune in at some point despite strongly negative public sentiment in the leadup to the event. An IOC representative told Nikkei Asia after the Olympics had finished that “we can say Asia is showing strong audience figures in early indicators overall”.

Without comprehensive, English-language statistics available for Asia, though, the IOC’s November report could be key in showing us just how much more audiences tuned into these Games compared to Rio 2016 or Beijing 2008. The same is also true for Latin America, where a decline is likely to have occurred relative to Rio 2016, and Africa.

Australia and Canada were notable this cycle for reporting high levels of digital engagement around the Games. National rightsholder in Australia Seven revealed that the average full day Olympic broadcast audience increased 71 per cent nationally compared to 2016 Rio Olympic Games; and that over 4.74 billion minutes had been watched on its streaming service, 7Plus.

This latter figure is particularly interesting as 4.74 billion minutes is surprisingly close to the 5.6 billion minutes streamed in the United States, which has a population 13 times the size of Australia. Making sure that measurement methodologies are equivalent is key – but if they are in any way similar, Australia may well be leading the way in getting its population enthusiastic about the Summer Olympics.

Figures from Canada’s national broadcaster CBC, meanwhile, show total television viewership falling slightly to 28.1 million people, a roughly 13% decline from the 31 million who watched in 2016 which is likely attributable to time zone differences. Similarly to the United States and Australia, though, digital viewership was at a record high level of 17 million hours, or 1.02 billion minutes, streamed online.

This in turn lends credence to the theory that factors specific to the United States drove its decline in ratings, as the two countries have similar time zones and demographics, yet the United States’ 42% loss of live television viewership from 2016 was over three times what Canada’s was. Again, this statistic relies on the assumption that changes in average primetime viewership (measured in the U.S.) vary in a similar way to changes in total viewership (measured in Canada).

Lastly, in Europe, new main rightsholder Discovery was similarly helped by increases in streaming and online engagement. 1.3 billion minutes of Olympics-related content was consumed during the Games across Discovery’s digital platforms, which is a seemingly incredible 21 times more streaming minutes than the company logged at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

However, a caveat here is that Discovery subcontracts its rights out to local free-to-air European broadcasters, so while measuring Discovery figures may tell us that Discovery has been successfully attracting people to its platform, it doesn’t tell us the greater picture of viewer habits in Europe. It also doesn’t tell us how this year’s ratings compared to 2016, since Tokyo was the first Summer Olympics Discovery had near-universal European rights to.

Some other indicators from Europe have also come to light, including from the BBC which had record online engagement despite the rights for many events in the United Kingdom going to Discovery. Nevertheless, as with other continents, the IOC’s global report will likely be necessary to understand just how much total viewership in Europe has changed over time, inclusive of all broadcasters.

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