“Total Audience Delivery” Metric in Place for First Time for a Winter Olympics
Nielsen Local Overnight Ratings & Total Audience Delivery to Be Issued Daily
11am ET Fast Affiliate Metric NOT REFLECTIVE OF OLYMPIC VIEWERSHIP Due to Coverage “Live Across” the Country
STAMFORD, Conn. – February 7, 2018 – NBC Sports Group will report ratings, viewership, and consumption figures for the PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games beginning this Friday, February 9, based on Thursday night’s competition. The Opening Ceremony from PyeongChang airs on NBC at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Friday, February 9.
Highlighting this daily reporting for the first time for a Winter Games will be Total Audience Delivery (TAD), which measures viewership across all platforms that are simultaneously presenting the Olympics. For primetime in PyeongChang, TAD will include broadcast television, cable television, and streaming on phones, tablets, desktops, and connected TVs. Click here for a video from NBC Sports Group Senior Vice President of Research Joe Brown, who further details the TAD.
With the benefit of a 14-hour time difference, NBC and NBCSN will present LIVE COMPETITION IN PRIMETIME on every night of the PyeongChang Olympics (excluding the days of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies). These live NBC and NBCSN telecasts will be live streamed on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. In addition, for the first time ever at a Winter Olympics, NBC will broadcast Olympic primetime competition live across all time zones.
Ratings and viewership for the PyeongChang Olympics will be reported daily as follows:
- Approximately 10am ET – Nielsen local overnight ratings for NBC and NBCSN; Top Local Market Ratings on NBC – Information Available @NBCSportsPR on Twitter.
- Between 3-5pm ET – Total Audience Delivery viewership (broadcast + cable + digital), with primetime and additional context – Information Available in Press Release on NBC Sports Group Press Box website. Will also be distributed via @NBCSportsPR.
- NOTE: Fast Affiliate metrics issued at 11am ET are NOT REFLECTIVE of Olympic viewership as they do not include viewers in Mountain and Pacific Time zones watching NBC’s coverage, which will be “live across” the country.
“For big events, such as the Olympics, which are televised live across the country, the best and most accurate way to measure viewership is to use program ratings which account for when the program aired across the country,” said Peter Bradbury, Managing Director, National Media Client Solutions, Nielsen. “The fast affiliate looks at a specific time (daypart) regardless of when a program aired. So for a live event in primetime on the east coast, the fast affiliate would not be measuring that same program in the mountain and west time zones.”
Total Audience Delivery was introduced during the 2016 Rio Olympics, with the live primetime viewership on NBCSN and additional viewership via live stream accounting for an increase of nearly two million primetime viewers per competition night from the NBC-only broadcast audience.
There will also be a wide range of social media coverage of the Winter Games, including on Snapchat and Google. Although not included in TAD, these platforms will be measured and provide another way for companies to reach the millions of U.S. viewers consuming the Olympics. This consumption will also be reported regularly as data becomes available.
NBC’s live primetime coverage of The Winter Olympics begins tomorrow, Thurs., February 8.
— PYEONGCHANG 2018 —