The ratings are in for NBC’s first day of coverage for the 2022 Winter Olympics being held in communist China and they are down from the previous year.
The network’s coverage in prime-time Thursday for the opening ceremony to kick off the games averaged 7.7 million total viewers, according to a report published Friday by TV Line.com. The Olympic viewership also landed with a 1.3 rating in the coveted demographic of ages 18-49, the outlet noted. (RELATED: The TV Ratings For The Opening Weekend Of The Olympics Tank)
While those numbers helped the network lead the night, those numbers are down over the last decade, Outkick’s Clay Travis noted. He appeared to be noting numbers from Sports Media Watch.
“Just 7.2 million people watched the first day of the Olympics from China,” Travis tweeted Friday.
Just 7.2 million people watched the first day of the Olympics from China. That’s down 55% from 2018 and down 64% from 2014. Americans are overwhelmingly refusing to watch an Olympics that features athletes and countries bowing down to Chinese dictators. Love to see it.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 4, 2022
“That’s down 55% from 2018 and down 64% from 2014,” he added. “Americans are overwhelmingly refusing to watch an Olympics that features athletes and countries bowing down to Chinese dictators. Love to see it.” (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
“Via Sports Media Watch, average primetime Olympics viewership –Tokyo last year was least-watched ever; Beijing 2022 set to plumb new depths,” Medium Buying tweeted.
Via Sports Media Watch, average primetime Olympics viewership —
Tokyo last year was least-watched ever; Beijing 2022 set to plumb new depths pic.twitter.com/xqDzKmZO4c
— Medium Buying (@MediumBuying) February 4, 2022
The tweet included a graphic showing average primetime Olympic viewership dating back to the games in Seoul in 1988 when the Olympic Summer Games scored 25.3 million viewers. The average viewership for the games in Tokyo in 2021 was 15.6 million, a steady drop over the last several decades, the outlet noted.