Olympics Ratings Rise From 2018 Low; Down From 2014 On 2nd Sunday Of Games

Olympics Ratings Rise From 2018 Low; Down From 2014 On 2nd Sunday Of Games

Almost all athletes talk about the thrill of being at the Olympics, but it truly must be extra thrilling for Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, especially after last night’s record-breaking performance.

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Going for a historic five-medal streak, the 2010 gold winners and 2014 silver winners brought some of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” to PyeongChang games on NBC’s Sunday primetime coverage. The Devil was clearly in the details, because the skating duo shattered their own record for a short program with 83.67 points. Which means Virtue and Moir are now well poised to take their second 2018 gold.

You’ve never seen anything like this!@TessaVirtue and @ScottMoir record the highest score ever in the short dance! #WinterOlympics https://t.co/rI5qqWTrJl pic.twitter.com/TnuyV56J2S

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 19, 2018

All of which also can flip around any notion of “Blame Canada” for NBC as the outlet’s coverage of the XXIII Winter Games pulled itself out of Saturday’s ratings low on Sunday. A long weekend probably didn’t hurt either as a combination of NBC and NBC Sports Networks’ coverage delivered an 11.8/20 in metered market results for the second Sunday of the South Korean set games.

That’s up 13% in the early numbers from the previous low of February 17 to perch as the silver medal of lowest rating of official competition of the PyeongChang games so far. But, in an Olympics that has seen NBC stuck at an 8% decline overall from 2014, a rise is a rise and a win is a win if you get it.

In that view, let’s pull back the focus a bit and take into account the other sporting competition of the Daytona 500 earlier in the day on Fox and the NBA All-Star Games on TNT and TBS last night. Results for the Charlize Theron-kicked-off car race haven’t cross the ratings finish line yet but the tight Team LeBron 148-145 victory over Team Stephen looks to be even with last year.

As impressive as that going from a non-Olympic year to facing the international competition, with a 5.1 in metered market results, this year’s NBA All-Star Game is also up 4% over when it was up against the 2014 Olympics and 11% over its counterprogramming to the Vancouver 2010 games.

With all that, compared to the first Sunday of the 2018 Winter Olympics on February 11, last night took a hard but not unexpected 28% dive in metered market results. That first Sunday of almost any Olympics is a high or near high as the marquee names take to their initial events, or do not in the case of Mikaela Shiffrin, and viewer interest is still sparked coming off the always much hyped Opening Ceremony.

Even with almost no Big 4 rivals but a new 60 Minutes (0.7/3) and a steady Big Brother: Celebrity Edition (1.2/5) last night, at this point in any Olympics, interest is clearly waning. Over on ABC, America’s Funniest Home Videos (0.9/3) and Shark Tank (0.7/3) were both down a tenth from last Sunday.

Still, pulling back even further, the melded NBC and NBCSN results of last night are down 10% from the primetime coverage of the second Sunday of Sochi on February 16, 2014. That broadcast of over four years ago was only on NBC and faced not just an NBA All-Stars match-up but AMC’s The Walking Dead too.

Just looking at NBC’18 to NBC’14, last night’s Olympics coverage fell 20% from four years ago. NBC’s coverage of February 16, 2014 went on to snare 21.3 million viewers in the final numbers on that Presidents’ Day weekend of four years ago.

There was a Nielsen delay because of the holiday in the final numbers for Saturday’s Olympics coverage being released. Yet, as skier Shiffrin has now dropped out of the delayed downhill, we really do promise we will update with more PyeongChang ratings for then and for last night when we get them as well as other Big 4 results.

Have a good holiday!