FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, August 4th, 2021

NBC DELIVERS FIRST TUESDAY WEEK-OVER-WEEK OLYMPICS VIEWERSHIP INCREASE SINCE 1988, HIGHLIGHTED BY SIMONE BILES & SUNI LEE IN BALANCE BEAM AND SYDNEY MCLAUGHLIN’S THRILLING 400M HURDLES VICTORY

NBC Olympics’ Tuesday Audience of 17.4 Million Viewers Marks 130th Consecutive Summer Olympics Night at #1 in Primetime

NBC’s Tokyo Olympics Averaging 16.8 Million Primetime Viewers, Pacing to Join NBC’s Sunday Night Football as Top 2 Shows of 2020-21

TODAY and Nightly News – LIVE in Tokyo – Both Register Most-Watched Weeks Since Early March & Top the Competition

Tokyo Olympics in Spanish: Telemundo Deportes Delivers Large Share of Hispanic Audiences

STAMFORD, Conn. – August 4, 2021 – Highlighted by Simone Biles returning to the gymnastics competition alongside teammate Suni Lee, and the captivating, world-record setting women’s 400m hurdles final featuring Sydney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muhammad, NBC Olympics delivered more primetime viewers on the second Tuesday of the Olympics than on the opening Tuesday for the first time since the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

With last night’s Total Audience Delivery (TAD) average of 17.4 million viewers across NBC, cable and live streaming, the Tokyo Olympics continued the event’s streak as the most dominant in media, easily winning primetime for the 130th consecutive Summer Olympics night.

“Last night’s performance speaks to the unmatched strength and consistency of the Olympic audience across all television, digital and social media platforms, and has led to three consecutive nights of ratings growth in the second week of the Summer Games for the first time since the 1976 Montreal Olympics,” said Pete Bevacqua, Chairman, NBC Sports.

Additional notes on Tokyo Olympics consumption across NBCUniversal:

    • NBC Olympics’ primetime coverage is averaging a Total Audience Delivery of 16.8 million viewers through Tuesday night — pacing to rank with NBC’s Sunday Night Football as the two most-watched primetime shows in 2020-21.
    • NBC Olympics’ primetime presentation has registered at least 15 million viewers on 10 of 11 competition nights, based on official live plus same day data provided by Nielsen and digital metrics from Adobe Analytics.
    • The TODAY show and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt – broadcasting live from Tokyo – both delivered their most-watched weeks since early March. TODAY averaged 3.4 million viewers for the week of July 26-August 1 – easily ranking as the week’s #1 morning show (beating the closest competition by 12%). Nightly News averaged 7.15 million viewers from Monday through Friday, while Nightly’s Sunday edition was the week’s most-watched program (8.9 million viewers) across all of television, excluding sports.
    • Telemundo Deportes’ Spanish-language coverage of the Tokyo Olympics has captured a large share of Hispanic audiences. Click here for more information.
    • Last night’s Tokyo Olympics television viewership (16.9 million) quadrupled the combined primetime viewership of ABC, CBS and FOX (4.2 million).
    • NBC Sports Digital delivered an Average Minute Audience (AMA) of 512,000 viewers on Tuesday night across NBC Olympics.com, the NBC Sports app, and Peacock.

 

ABOUT NBC OLYMPICS

A division of NBC Sports Group, NBC Olympics is responsible for producing, programming and promoting NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Olympic & Paralympic Games. NBC Olympics is renowned for its unsurpassed Olympic heritage, award-winning production, and ability to aggregate the largest audiences in U.S. television history. NBCUniversal owns the U.S. media rights on all platforms to all Olympic Games through 2032. NBC Olympics also produces thousands of hours of Olympic & Paralympic sports programming throughout the year, which is presented on NBC, NBCSN, Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, Peacock and NBC Sports digital platforms.

–NBC OLYMPICS–