2022 Olympics

NBCU provided advertising data from the Olympics and Super Bowl and Nielsen integrated broadband-only homes into a local universe sample in a month that marked a turning point in the fraught universe of TV metrics. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

NBCUniversal’s airing of the 2022 Beijing Olympics suffered a 42% decline in average primetime viewers across its TV network and streaming platform versus the 2018 Winter Games. Preliminary total audience delivery — for the NBC Television Network, USA Network, CNBC and the streamer Peacock — averaged 11.4 million viewers for the 18-day event, according to data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

These Olympics were a disaster for the network: a buzz-free, hermetically-sealed event in an authoritarian country a half-day’s time zone away, where the enduring images will be the emotional meltdown of Russian teen-agers after a drug-tainted figure skating competition and a bereft Mikaela Shiffrin, sitting on a ski slope wondering what went wrong. Viewers stayed away in alarming numbers, and NBC has to wonder whether it was extraordinarily bad luck or if the brand of a once-unifying event for tens of millions of people is permanently tainted.

“The adults in the room left her alone,” NBC Olympics host Mike Tirico said from a studio during the network’s Thursday night coverage of the Games. “Portrayed by some this week as the villain, by others as the victim, she is, in fact, the victim of the villains. The coaches and National Olympic Committee surrounding Kamila Valieva, whether they orchestrated, prescribed or enabled all of this is unclear, but what is certain: They failed to protect her.”

One of the most stunning moments in the history of Olympic defeats unfolded Thursday after Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian figure skater largely expected to waltz to a gold medal, fell twice during her free skate to finish in fourth place. The scene on NBC’s broadcast on the USA Network was excruciating to watch and quickly devolved into teary disbelief and chaos that was unlike anything in recent Olympic memory. “This is my 18th Olympic Games,” NBC’s Jimmy Roberts said as he closed the live coverage, “and I can honestly say I do not think I have ever seen anything like this. Raw emotions everywhere. A stunning resolution to the story, and it’s one I can’t imagine anyone saw coming.”

NBCUniversal is providing coverage of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing from Feb. 2 to 20, featuring a Winter Olympics-record 2,800-plus hours of coverage across NBC, Peacock, USA Network, CNBC, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. Here’s where all the tech necessary to deliver all that comes from.

Late Monday night in Beijing, NBC sportscaster Mike Tirico boarded a chartered jet for one of the most remarkable travel stretches in sports broadcasting history. He’d been in China for two weeks, waking at about 4 a.m. local time to host the network’s prime-time coverage of the Winter Olympics, and now he was headed toward the NBC studios in Stamford, Conn. After laying over in Japan and spending Tuesday adjusting to the 13-hour time difference, Tirico returned to hosting primetime Olympics coverage Wednesday and Thursday. Then on Friday, he flew to Los Angeles to begin hosting the network’s Super Bowl programming as well — and Sunday, which NBC branded “Super Gold Sunday,” he’ll do something unprecedented — hosting both the Olympics and the Super Bowl in the same day.

As the Winter Olympics near the halfway point, NBC’s viewership is nearly half of what it was four years ago and is on pace to be the lowest in the event’s history. An average of 12.3 million nightly viewers per day have watched the Winter Olympics on Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal TV and streaming channels through Feb. 8. That compares with about 23 million viewers at the same point for the 2018 games in PyeongChang, South Korea, according to an NBC spokesman.

For the second straight Olympics, the emotional health of athletes performing on the biggest stage has become a focus of discussion. The experiences of gymnast Simone Biles and tennis player Naomi Osaka last summer were fresh in the mind of NBC’s critics, and the online blowback was fierce after Mikaela Shiffrin skied out for the second time in Beijing.

Amid the rising popularity of NFL games this season, one industry estimate predicts the Super Bowl’s live TV viewership will return to growth — rising between 110 million and 117 million viewers, according to PredictHQ, a marketing “demand forecasting” company. At 117 million viewers, that would be 20% higher than last year’s results, which pulled in 97.3 million viewers when totaling linear TV and streaming TV results, according to Nielsen.

NBCUniversal, which has been active in the search for alternatives to Nielsen for audience measurement, is touting some metrics that could encourage its Olympic advertisers. The fancy metrics show that NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics has fewer commercials and that those commercials are working hard, the kind of data NBCU believes is important to companies writing big checks to sponsor the games.

Through the first four nights of competition, NBC is on track for the lowest-rated Winter Games in history. Friday night’s coverage on NBC, USA Network and Peacock averaged 12.8 million viewers, significantly down from the 27.8 million average in Pyeongchang four years ago. NBC saw a steady increase in viewers Saturday and Sunday night, but the ratings are down more than half compared to Pyeongchang.

NBC Sports says 16 million viewers tuned in to watch the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony across multiple platforms last Friday, a new record-low for the event since NBCUniversal began broadcasting the Olympics in 1988. The total audience delivery (TAD) of 16 million viewers is down 43% compared to the 28.3 million viewers that watched the PyeongChang Winter Olympics opening ceremony in February 2018.

Tirico’s final show from Beijing will be Monday night. He will fly from China to NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Conn., to host Wednesday’s and Thursday’s shows before heading to Los Angeles on Friday to anchor Olympic and Super Bowl coverage through Sunday.

The Games are central to the network’s brand, and NBC will have to navigate complications resulting from the pandemic and politics.

Katie Nolan, the sportscaster who has made a name for herself in the world of digital content, is taking her talents to NBC Sports. Nolan is joining the NBC Olympics team, and is expected to create daily short-form content, which will be distributed across both traditional and digital platforms.

With China’s strict policy about those who test positive for COVID-19, most of NBC’s announcers for the Beijing Games are stationed stateside. NBC isn’t alone in keeping its announcers home. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has almost all its analysts and announcers working out of studios in Toronto and Montreal. The BBC is also keeping announcers at studios outside London.

Dave Mazza, SVP/CTO for NBC Sports and NBC Olympics discusses the unique challenges that come with being the second consecutive Olympics taking place during a global pandemic as well as issues with weather and accessibility to venues.

Various athlete-centric NBC promos for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics top B+C’s Promo Mojo chart showing the top five TV promos ranked by ad impressions or the week ending Jan. 23.

Republican leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have sent a letter to NBCUniversal executives voicing concerns about “the extent of influence the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) may have over NBCUniversal’s coverage of the games.” the letter, addressed to NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell and NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel, asks NBC how it plans to use its “investment in the Games to shed light on China’s history of human rights abuses.”

The new arrangement comes as a direct result of NBCUniversal’s RFP last year to social media platforms to propose new content, product and monetization approaches for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

NBC Sports this week made the not-too-surprising announcement that much of its Beijing Olympics team would be covering next month’s Winter Games from afar, in Stamford, Conn., as the COVID pandemic once again disrupts the event. But the international outcry over human rights abuses in China, leading to a U.S. diplomatic boycott, has put extra scrutiny on how the network covers the games, starting with the telecast of the opening ceremonies on Feb. 4, with Mike Tirico hosting from Beijing and Today‘s Savannah Guthrie in the states.

Journalists covering the Winter Olympics next month say they’ll do their work in Beijing on brand-new cellphones and laptops. When the games are over, they’ll simply leave them behind or throw them away. The reason: Reporters are concerned that any devices they use there could become infected with tracking software, enabling Chinese authorities to spy on their contents.

Due to concerns about COVID-19 and other COVID-related restrictions, ESPN will not be sending any news personnel to the Winter Olympics in China and will instead focus on covering the games remotely with a plan that will roll out prior to the beginning of competition next month. “The safety of our employees is of utmost importance to us,” said Norby Williamson, ESPN EVP, event and studio production and executive editor. “With the pandemic continuing to be a global threat, and with the COVID-related on-site restrictions in place for the Olympics that would make coverage very challenging, we felt that keeping our people home was the best decision for us.”

As the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games approach and COVID-19 concerns mount, NBC Sports will not send any of its announcing teams to China, a spokesperson said Wednesday afternoon. “The announce teams for these Olympics, including figure skating, will be calling events from our Stamford (Conn.) facility due to COVID concerns,” Greg Hughes, senior vice president communications, NBC Sports, said.

UHD, immersive audio and 5G highlight the tech advances for the Olympic Broadcasting Services, whose CTO, Sotiris Salamouris, had to deal with challenges that arose following the postponment of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games that left only six months between the two events.

NBCUniversal is looking to the 2022 Winter Olympics to give its Peacock streaming platform a boost. The company said Wednesday that it will stream every event live, as well as NBC’s primetime show and studio programming, on Peacock’s premium tier. All paid subscribers (the premium tier costs $4.99 per month with ads) will have access, with no pay TV subscription required.