NBC's Tokyo Olympics viewership gets off to rough start

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From left, France's Mewen Tomac, China's Xu Jiayu and United States' Joseph Armstrong vie successful a 100-meter backstroke vigor astatine the 2020 Summer Olympics, Sunday, July 25, 2021, successful Tokyo. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

NEW YORK – If there's going to beryllium a surge successful viewership involvement successful the Tokyo Olympics, NBC Universal is inactive waiting.

For 3 consecutive nights, viewership for the Tokyo Games has been down much than 30% compared to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics successful 2016, and the web has been deed by a dependable watercourse of atrocious quality regarding American competitors.

The Nielsen institution said 16.9 cardinal radical watched Sunday night's sum connected NBC, down 43% from the corresponding nighttime successful Rio. Saturday's assemblage of 12.6 cardinal was down 39%.

The numbers amended somewhat erstwhile alternatives are figured in: People could travel the Olympics Sunday nighttime not conscionable connected NBC, but besides connected USA, NBCSN, CNBC and unrecorded streaming. Adding successful those alternatives lifts NBC's “total assemblage delivery” that nighttime to 20 million.

Variety reported Tuesday that NBC Universal is already discussing “make goods” with advertisers, the accepted word for describing however other ads are fixed to marque up for viewership goals not being met. NBC characterized the discussions with advertisers arsenic modular and not needfully tied to viewership levels.

Given however dramatically unrecorded tv viewership has declined successful 5 years with the detonation of streaming and connected demand, it's hard to accidental however overmuch the ratings diminution for the Olympics reflects that oregon a deficiency of involvement successful the games. But for NBC Universal, atrocious quality similar Simone Biles withdrawing from the women’s gymnastics squad last contention Tuesday can't help.

Nielsen besides reported 1 intriguing item astir opening ceremonies coverage: Roughly 12 cardinal radical watched the prime-time rerun of the ceremony, but 5 cardinal radical watched it unrecorded aboriginal Friday morning.

While the numbers aren't Olympian compared to past years, they enabled NBC to easy triumph the week's premier clip ratings contention with an mean of 8.1 cardinal viewers. ABC had 3.5 million, CBS had 2.3 million, Univision had 1.6 million, Fox had 1.3 million, Ion Television had 1.1 cardinal and Telemundo had 950,000.

Fox News Channel led cablegram networks, averaging 2.05 cardinal viewers successful premier time. MSNBC had 1.21 million, HGTV had 1.07 million, USA had 1.05 cardinal and Hallmark had 1.01 million.

ABC's “World News Tonight” won the evening quality ratings race, averaging 7.5 cardinal viewers. NBC's “Nightly News" had 6 cardinal and the “CBS Evening News” had 4.6 million.

For the week of July 19-25, the apical 20 premier clip programs, their networks and viewerships:

1. “Summer Olympics” (Sunday), NBC, 16.86 million.

2. “Summer Olympics” (Saturday), NBC, 12.64 million.

3. NBA Finals: Phoenix astatine Milwaukee, Game 6, ABC, 12.52 million.

4. “Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony,” NBC, 11.98 million.

5. “Summer Olympics Preview” (Saturday, 8-8:30 p.m.), NBC, 8.74 million.

6. “America's Got Talent,” NBC, 6.81 million.

7. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 4.57 million.

8. “Celebrity Family Feud,” ABC, 3.9 million.

9. “Big Brother” (Thursday), CBS, 3.874 million.

10. “The Bachelorette," ABC, 3.865 million.

11. “The $100,000 Pyramid,” ABC, 3.82 million.