In addition, Josh Noval is promoted to senior vice president, Olympics & Paralympics.
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.
NBCUniversal said that Dan Lovinger had been promoted to president, NBC advertising sales and partnerships. Lovinger, who had been executive VP, sales and partnerships, NBC Sports Group, will be responsible for stewarding and monetizing all of NBCU’s Olympics and Paralympics business, including advertising sales for all games through 2032, according to a memo to staff from Linda Yaccarino, chairman, global advertising sales and partnerships at NBCU. Lovinger will also manage NBCU’s partnership with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Properties group.
The network wins the full TV year in both total viewers and adults 18-49 for the first time since 2018. NBC averaged 5.29 million viewers in primetime for the TV year, a slim 30,000 more than CBS (5.26 million). ABC ranks third with 4.31 million, and Fox is at 3.56 million.
During the Tokyo Games, which ran July 23-Aug. 8, YouTube viewers watched more than 200 million hours of Olympics-related content (including historical footage of past Olympic Games). According to the video platform, that’s seven times the amount of hours of Olympic Games content YouTube visitors watched during Rio 2016.
Exclusives
NBC’s primetime Thursday coverage of the Tokyo Olympics averaged 8.6 million total viewers and a 1.9 demo rating, marking the summer games’ smallest audience yet (per fast nationals) and matching their demo low (set last Saturday). On Fox, an NFL preseason match-up between the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers averaged 6.2 million viewers and a 1.7 demo rating.
NBCU said that the Olympics are on pace to deliver more minutes in consumption than the average month of Netflix and March Madness combined. Viewers have streamed more than 3 billion minutes of Tokyo Olympics coverage across platforms, the company said.
NBC announced on Tuesday that it has promoted Solomon to executive president and producer of the network’s Olympics unit, becoming the first woman to be an executive producer for a network sports division.
U.S. Olympics rightsholder NBCUniversal has reach as agreement with Twitter by which the social media giant will show limited live event coverage of the Tokyo games next year along with highlights and a daily show. While the overwhelming majority of the thousands of hours of Olympic coverage will remain on NBC’s TV and digital streaming platforms, the deal is the furthest the company has gone in letting some live video leave its ecosystem.
NBCUniversal has inked a deal with LA 2028 to allow for coordinated sponsorship sales opportunities for four Olympics cycles, culminating in the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. As part of the deal, NBCU must help the non-profit LA 2028 along its goal of raising $2.5 billion in sponsorship dollars to help pay for the games in California.
After years of trying, the U.S and International Olympic Committees have agreed with NBC on a package that will offer year-round Olympic programming, focused on U.S. athletes.
Exponential growth in the program hours generated by NBC’s biennial Olympics presentations have turned the sports franchise into a cottage industry of audience data and technological innovation for NBCUniversal. But the Olympics also present a metrics challenge for NBCU and Comcast, Olympics exec producer Jim Bell said Wednesday
The deal reflects a growing push across the industry to better understand how digital changes are transforming the way people consume entertainment.
David Zaslav — the president and chief executive officer of Discovery Communications — talks about his deal with the International Olympic Committee to pay $1.4 billion to air four Olympics Games, from 2018 to 2024, across Europe.
Discovery Communications, the parent company of the Discovery Channel and Eurosport, won the rights to the games of 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024, and also agreed to collaborate with the IOC on its new year-round Olympic Channel.
The agreement from 2021 to 2032 is valued at $7.65 billion, plus an extra $100 million signing bonus for promotion of the Olympics between 2015 and 2020. The latest deal was announced Wednesday after secret negotiations between the International Olympic Committee and NBC. There was no auction or open bidding this time, with only NBC making an offer.
NBC Stamford Facility To Help Power Sochi
The new Connecticut operation will account for about 400 of the 3,100 people that will be working on the Winter Olympic games for NBC. Among its jobs will be to produce play-by-play coverage of the curling competition for distribution on the cable channels; produce Gold Zone for NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra app; produce news cut-ins for the digital coverage; and will also be home of the “highlights factory,” which will crank out highlights from all the events for all the platforms.
After seven years as executive producer of the Today show and leading coverage last summer of the London Olympics, Bell heads back to NBC Sports.
Big events elicit big social media chatter, but the social media rankings are not in the same order as the ratings rankings. According to the social media research company Trendrr, the No. 1 chatter-getter so far this year is MTV’s Music Video Awards, with some 19.2 million social interactions. Right behindit is the Super Bowl on NBC, grabbing 17.5 million social messages. CBS’ Grammy Awards special came next at 17.1 million,with NBC’s recent airing of the Summer Olympics closing ceremony right behind at 11.7 million.
NBC, Panasonic Team for Olympics 3D
This summer, NBC will air 200 hours of the London games produced by the host Olympic Broadcast Services using Panasonic 3D gear. The 3D coverage of gymastics, diving, swimming and other events will be recorded and broadcast a day later.
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Thursday that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBCUniversal bosses Steve Burke and Gary Zenkel have assured him that the resignation of NBC Sports & Olympics President Dick Ebersol does not alter NBC’s plan to bid on the next round of U.S. Olympic broadcast rights next month, a competition that is expected to include ABC/ESPN and Fox.
Does cherish the Olympics with the same fervor as did , which has paid billions to make the network of the Summer and the Winter Games for a generation?
