Tokyo Olympics Ratings Highs and Lows So Far – And How They Stack Up to 2016 Rio Games

After a year’s delay due to the pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics got off to a rocky start on NBC last Friday with an opening ceremony that was down 35% in total viewers compared to the 2016 kickoff to the Rio de Janeiro Summer Games, an all-time low in viewership. One week later, we have six nights of Nielsen data that give a better idea of overall interest in NBC’s Tokyo Olympics coverage. We also know which night took the gold and which didn’t even medal — and how they stack up to Rio’s comparable evenings. Through Thursday, the Tokyo Olympics are averaging a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 17.5 million primetime viewers. That number counts linear viewing on NBC and cable networks USA Network, NBCSN, CNBC, plus streaming on Peacock, the NBC Sports app and NBCOlympics.com. But viewership is down 42% overall from the Rio Olympics in 2016, which averaged a TAD of 30.5 million primetime viewers through the first Thursday of competition. That tally, of course, does not include numbers from streaming service Peacock, which launched last spring. So, yeah, that’s way down, but TV ratings overall have been in a steady decline in recent years, making comparing 2016...

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