Tokyo Olympics Primetime Ratings Stumble, But NBCU Still Eyes Big Ad Revenue

The Tokyo Olympics are not immune to the decline in ratings that have plagued other major sports and entertainment events during the past year, with the Games’ early primetime ratings down approximately one-third compared to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Friday’s opening ceremony was watched by around 17 million U.S. viewers, a figure that includes audiences who watched it live in the morning and the approximately 12 million who saw Friday’s prime time rebroadcast. That’s a 36% drop from the 26.5 million who watched the Rio Olympics opening ceremony in prime time. Saturday’s prime time coverage had a Total Audience Delivery (which includes total viewers on all linear, digital, streaming and social platforms) average of 15.3 million viewers, while Sunday night averaged 19.8 million—19.2 million on linear alone— which tripled the combined viewership from the other broadcast networks. Here’s How Connected TV Platforms Are Streaming the Tokyo Olympics NBCU Olympic advertisers cannot buy inventory during specific events or days; instead, the company uses TAD and its One Platform offering to create schedules that will run across a broad array of its Olympics platforms. This also gives it the ability to move advertisers onto platforms with greater viewership in order to meet their audience guarantees. NBCUniversal knew that its primetime ratings would be down compared to those of Rio, but had hoped that the numbers would be stronger, according to a source close to negotiations. And the ratings struggle could continue, given Tuesday morning’s exit of one, and potentially two, of the Games’ highest-profile stars: tennis superstar Naomi Osaka (who was defeated in the third round) and Simone Biles (who withdrew from the women’s gymnastics team final, putting her participation in doubt for individual events later in the week). However, other dayparts have been strong, and the company is just getting some of its digital numbers in. Though Sunday, said NBC Sports, viewers have streamed 735 million total minutes of Tokyo Olympics content, an increase of 24% from the comparable time period for Rio in 2016, and up 41% from PyeongChang in 2018. Working on makegoods After the Tokyo Games were postponed a full year due to Covid-19, the company did not reduce its guarantees (made using the company’s Total Audience Delivery metric) despite overall ratings declines over the past year. While the company will be on the hook for makegoods to advertisers, and those conversations are already underway, the gap isn’t as major as the one-third primetime ratings drops, and is within the same 15-20% range as other sports events, said a source for NBCUniversal. As always, the team held back some of its Tokyo inventory in case makegoods are needed for audience underdelivery, "but the hope is we’ll be able to sell straight through the Games,” Dan Lovinger, evp of ad sales, NBC Sports, said last month. At this point, however, the ad sales team is focused on supporting its current partners and determining its makegoods situation, according to the source close to negotiations. Once that is squared away, the company will prioritize selling any remaining Tokyo inventory. No updated ad revenue number Since last year’s postponement, NBCUniversal had been mostly quiet about its Tokyo Olympics ad sales efforts. Last month, the company said it had surpassed Rio’s $1.2 billion in ad revenue and was on par with its March 2020 figure of $1.25 billion, but did not give an updated figure. At that time, Linda Yaccarino, chairman of global advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal, said that her team would be sharing more specifics about Olympics ad sales ahead of the opening ceremony—but that did not occur prior to the start of the Games, and the company has still not updated its ad revenue number. Instead, NBCUniversal shared data Monday pointing to gains in attention, engagement and impact in its early Olympics ads—among its stats, opening ceremony brand recall was up 39% compared to the same event in Rio—and reiterated that it would work with advertisers to meet their guarantees. “Just as athletes transformed the Olympics by continuing to push the boundaries of sport, our marketing partnerships have in turn evolved, reflecting how our audiences are watching the Games today. Enjoying the Games is not a linear sprint, but a multi-screen relay—and we know our platform will deliver for advertisers in delivery and impact. Our teams are speaking to our partners every single day to ensure we help them achieve their goals throughout the Games," Mark Marshall, president of advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal, said Monday in a statement. NBCU had more than 140 advertisers lined up for Tokyo—roughly 40 more than the 100-plus it had in Rio—and more than 100 of those advertisers did not participate in the Rio Games. The company’s U.S. advertising partners have remained committed to the Games amid the controversy of holding the Games while Toyota is in a state of emergency due to the pandemic. Toyota, a top Olympics sponsor, pulled its Games-related TV ads for Japanese television last week, but did not change its U.S. spend. NBCUniversal Surpasses Rio’s $1.2 Billion Advertising Haul for Tokyo Olympics