Olympic TV ratings way down

The Brazilian time zone is not helping TV ratings for the Olympic Games. Interest may build as the events unfold, but so far, UK audiences are down almost one third when compared with the London Games in 2012 (linear viewing is 24.6 million cumulatively from the Opening Ceremony through to 2am Monday morning, whilst for the same period in 2012 ratings were at 39.2 million).

However, on the upside, the BBC says that there’s good news in that digital ‘Red Button’ viewing is up with Day One attracting 12.9 million compared to 7.8 million in 2012.

The time difference is worse by an hour in Continental Europe, and in France local reports say the Opening Ceremony drew just 1.6 million viewers, much lower than for London 2012.

German TV audiences are reportedly better, despite a fire at ZDF’s studio in Rio which interrupted transmissions at around 1.30am on Monday morning. On average, the Rio events on Saturday saw 3.74 million tuning in and some events that evening gathered audiences of up to 4.7 million. …

… read on at advanced-television.com

Originally posted by Chris Forrester at Advanced Television
9th August 2016