2022 Winter Olympics viewership drops 42% from 2018: NBC
Yahoo Finance Live's Akiko Fujita and Brian Cheung examine the ratings drop reported in NBC's TV viewership data on their broadcast of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Video transcript
AKIKO FUJITA: Well, the Beijing Olympic games may now be in the past, but NBC is still reeling from the lack of viewers. Ratings were down 42%, Brian, from the Pyeongchang games four years ago. With just 11.4 million primetime viewers, Olympics ratings hit an all-time low for the network. That is a big ouch, but I can't say I'm necessarily surprised here. I mean, how much of the games did you watch?
BRIAN CHEUNG: Not a lot. Actually, I was trying to watch the-- what was it-- the alpine skiing mixed event where it's by nation, and they have both men and women compete. I couldn't figure out the scoring of it. I didn't know what was going on, so I just ultimately flipped it off. And then I turned on "Cool Runnings" on Disney+, just to-- that way, I was still, like, in the spirit of the Winter Olympics, but I [INAUDIBLE] because it's just more exciting.
But yeah, I mean, you also have to wonder, though, how much the politics played into it as well, with kind of the administration and maybe NBC themselves kind of maybe downplaying the Beijing Olympics because of, A, just the political tension between the United States and China, but then, B, just COVID and the inability for NBC to physically be there in the capacity that they were in Pyeongchang. I imagine all of that weighed on them as well.
AKIKO FUJITA: I mean, I will say just on a personal note, I find NBC's coverage to be too hyper domestic. I mean, we watch the Olympic games because it's an international competition. And yet, the only ones that are often featured are the American athletes. I'm not sure if that really has an effect at all. But we should mention even from the Tokyo games, it was down. It was down 26% from the 15 and 1/2 million primetime viewers NBC saw during the Summer Games last year.
Streaming, by the way, had the largest or second largest for any Olympics to date. And so, you know, Brian, that raises the questions with so many of these ratings and discussions is, are people migrating towards a different platform? Not a lot of people have cable or at least a lot of people I know have cable. And so, you know, maybe they are looking at streaming and consuming games in a different way. But--
BRIAN CHEUNG: Yeah, I mean, but the--
AKIKO FUJITA: --I mean, a 40% drop is significant.
BRIAN CHEUNG: Again, the problem is just competition. You know, if you're streaming on Peacock, the barrier to switch the channel is a lot lower than it is when you have to change the input on your television. Again, for me, that's the reason why I was like, you know, I don't understand what I'm watching, so I'm just going to watch the Jamaican bobsled story on Disney+ again. And people can do the same thing with Netflix. You know what? I want to rewatch "Tiger King" because I don't understand what sport I'm watching right now. You could do that. And I think that's going to be a continuous problem for NBC going forward, unfavorably.
AKIKO FUJITA: I did find myself going to YouTube a lot, by the way, to see. Like, I would read the headlines and see, oh, I want to watch that again.
BRIAN CHEUNG: Or watch the highlights.
AKIKO FUJITA: And I did finally get into half-pipe for snowboarding. That is just incredible to watch.
BRIAN CHEUNG: That's sick. That's pretty sick, I will say. Chloe Kim, obviously, turned it up.
AKIKO FUJITA: That-- yeah, exactly.
BRIAN CHEUNG: We love Chloe Kim.
AKIKO FUJITA: That was the highlight, I would say, of my limited Olympic viewing. We should mention this is going to wrap up things for Brian and I, but we are continuing to monitor what's playing out over at the White House. President Biden expected to speak at the top of the hour. Of course, we are expecting the US to announce additional sanctions against Russia after Russia moved their military troops into Eastern Ukraine.
This part of a broader response from the West as President Putin continues to pressure Ukraine. And of course, we're going to bring those comments from President Biden live for you as soon as they begin at the top of the hour. In the meantime, we're seeing the sell-off accelerate in the session with the Dow down about 460 points now. Keep it right here.
