Ratings: Olympics Eye Audience Low, Fox’s Preseason NFL Close Behind
In the latest TV ratings, 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).
Over 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.
Elsewhere, CBS’ Big Brother (3.6 mil/0.9) and Love Island (1.7 mil/0.4) each held steady in the demo week-to-week while dropping a handful of eyeballs… and The CW’s The Outpost (340K/0.0) dipped.
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The Live+Same Day numbers reported in our ratings column do not reflect a show’s overall performance, given the increased use of delayed playback via DVR and streaming platforms, plus out-of-home viewing. These numbers (Nielsen fast nationals, unless denoted as finals) instead aim to simply illustrate trends or superlatives. Happy Fun Ball contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled or looked at.
NFL the King of TV is back!
Wow, a preseason game middle of the summer with no major signifigence gets 6.2 viewers. Incredible.
last september the nielsen rules were changed to include bars and restaurants in the viewership numbers. 6.2 million is not very good given that major change in data collection.
“The Live+Same Day numbers reported in our ratings column do not reflect a show’s overall performance, given the increased use of delayed playback via DVR and streaming platforms, plus out-of-home viewing.”
tl: dr There is no OOH in these numbers.
How ’bout them…Steelers!
I like gymnastics, track and field, swimming and watch them between Olympics. But I’ve struggled to get engaged in this edition of the Olympics, not because of the audience free stands, but because the way NBC is doing it:
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– multiple showings of the same events throughout the day and the weird consequences of the out of synch time zone (so Japan is PST-8 + a day and that means I’m watching…geeze i dunno)
– no clear schedule beyond “we’ll show you what we show you when we want to show it to you and you’ll just have to watch all the puff filler and other events that you have no interest in” (seriously, when the internet lets me micro focus on individual things, you broadcast bloated mega shows? How charmingly Victorian in format),
– I’m not digging the talky in studio segments very much. Are the presenters…a little off?
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I mean is it any wonder they are getting half of what the 2016 Rio Olympics brought in and only a third of the London Olympics?
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They pay a lot of money to do it this badly.
Yes, I agree. NBC has screwed up that scheduling so badly. What in the hell are they doing? And that commentator from TODAY Savanna Guthrie) has a speech impediment or just doesn’t speak well. The opening ceremony among other things, she kept saying BLACK BEARS. Finally DONG on me, she was saying FLAG BEARERS. She needs to retire. A bunch of them need to get out now. This disaster proves it.
“Bare” and “bear” are pronounced the same.
100% agree
Agree with all your points, especially, ‘struggling to get engaged’. I do understand that it is an international event —but so many of NBC’s ‘presenters’ and event commentators were not American. Why was the British lady doing half of the hosting duties to an American audience? I appreciate the performances of all the athletes from every country, but I’m rooting for the home team!