What are we to make out of the drastic decline of television viewers for the Summer Olympics? A week into the Games, the numbers show that the ratings in are the lowest since the 2000 games in Sydney and off 18% from the 2012 Olympiad in London. NBC Sports Group Chair Mark Lazarus told http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2016/08/15/Olympics/NBC.aspx “when you take our Total Audience Delivery, it is still a little bit behind London’s overall delivery.” He added, “More people are consuming these Games then any before. So we feel very confident in our success here.” The WALL STREET jOURNAL wrote that NBC has had a roughly 30% drop among viewers ages 18-34.http://www.wsj.com/articles/nbcs-ratings-for-rio-olympics-fall-behind-london-1471185907 Why is that? I see consumption of media changing at a breakneck pace. The next time you go into a Starbucks, look how many people are on a device looking at content vs holding up a newspaper. How many people walk around with a walkman listening to a radio versus having skull candy on, listening to a podcast or some other form of content. Even the almighty Olympics can’t compete against technology with their 2016 stale way of content distribution.
I’ve found myself streaming most of the coverage. The numbers show that I am not alone, but it’s not as staggering as you might think. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/sports/olympics/nbc-streaming-online-rio-games.html?_r=1
How are you consuming the Olympic Games? What do you think of the coverage that NBC has provided? My email is Brad@sports360az.com
