Programming & Performance

Winter Olympics Ratings Were Down From 2014, but NBC Still Dominated Its Network Competition

Network hauled in $920 million in national ad sales, a Winter Games record

pyeongchang-closing-ceremony-CONTENT-2018 — NBC’s broadcast of the closing ceremony Sunday drew a total audience of 14.8 million, down 3 percent from 2014.Getty Images

February 26, 2018

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NBC’s Olympics coverage dominated the television and media landscape over the 18-day span. The network’s prime-time coverage averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 19.8 million, a figure that dwarfs the average audience of the network’s prime-time network competition.

Approximately 18 million of the roughly 20 million viewers who watched the games each night in prime time watched on NBC only. That’s 82 percent more than ABC, CBS and Fox’s combined totals in prime time on each night NBC aired the Olympics (9.8