[TV orNotTV] Olympic Ratings
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PGage
Aug 11, 2012, 5:32:09 AM8/11/12
to tvor...@googlegroups.com
http://www.latimes.com/business/fi-ct-olympics-ratings-20120811,0,7036585.story
Perhaps giving us some insight into the state of their business, The London Olympics are surprisingly going to be one fo the top 5 television events of all time, and the result is that NBC has a good chance of breaking even on the games.
I am most interested in the note that people are watching the primetime show even when they already know the results - I hope this makes them more likely to televise the premium events live next time during the day, which many have been arguing would actually improve primetime highlight show ratings. I would like to know what percentage of the primetime audience already knows the results of one or more major events.
Here are some selected graphs from the LAT article:
*********************
"The Olympics have defied media gravity," said Alan Wurtzel, president of research for parent company NBCUniversal. NBC's ratings are on track to outdistance numbers from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which many TV industry executives had figured would be a high-water mark. The last Summer Olympics to consistently attract such large crowds were the Montreal Games in 1976 — long before cable TV networks began splintering the audience.
The London Games will rank in the top five TV events of all time for several reasons, Wurtzel said. More people have smartphones and tablets that can stream video. More people are using social media. And more people are staying closer to home to save money because of the sluggish economy. (SNIP)
Its been very surprising that the audience levels have been up double digits compared to Beijing in every major demographic target, despite the fact that most people already knew the event results when they sat down to watch," (SNIP)
Heading into the Games, NBCUniversal executives worried that they could lose as much as $200 million on their coverage. The company paid $1.18 billion to the International Olympic Committee for the exclusive U.S. television rights as part of an arrangement struck nine years ago when NBC was controlled by General Electric Co. Production costs added at least $100 million. (Last year, the company agreed to pay the IOC $4.4 billion for the U.S. TV rights to the next four Olympic Games from 2014 to 2020.)
But now, company executives expect to break even on the London Games. NBCUniversal sold about $1.3 billion worth of ads for its six TV networks, digital platforms and local TV stations. Advertisers that bought time at the last minute forked over nearly $900,000 for a 30-second spot on NBC.
Perhaps giving us some insight into the state of their business, The London Olympics are surprisingly going to be one fo the top 5 television events of all time, and the result is that NBC has a good chance of breaking even on the games.
I am most interested in the note that people are watching the primetime show even when they already know the results - I hope this makes them more likely to televise the premium events live next time during the day, which many have been arguing would actually improve primetime highlight show ratings. I would like to know what percentage of the primetime audience already knows the results of one or more major events.
Here are some selected graphs from the LAT article:
*********************
"The Olympics have defied media gravity," said Alan Wurtzel, president of research for parent company NBCUniversal. NBC's ratings are on track to outdistance numbers from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which many TV industry executives had figured would be a high-water mark. The last Summer Olympics to consistently attract such large crowds were the Montreal Games in 1976 — long before cable TV networks began splintering the audience.
The London Games will rank in the top five TV events of all time for several reasons, Wurtzel said. More people have smartphones and tablets that can stream video. More people are using social media. And more people are staying closer to home to save money because of the sluggish economy. (SNIP)
Its been very surprising that the audience levels have been up double digits compared to Beijing in every major demographic target, despite the fact that most people already knew the event results when they sat down to watch," (SNIP)
Heading into the Games, NBCUniversal executives worried that they could lose as much as $200 million on their coverage. The company paid $1.18 billion to the International Olympic Committee for the exclusive U.S. television rights as part of an arrangement struck nine years ago when NBC was controlled by General Electric Co. Production costs added at least $100 million. (Last year, the company agreed to pay the IOC $4.4 billion for the U.S. TV rights to the next four Olympic Games from 2014 to 2020.)
But now, company executives expect to break even on the London Games. NBCUniversal sold about $1.3 billion worth of ads for its six TV networks, digital platforms and local TV stations. Advertisers that bought time at the last minute forked over nearly $900,000 for a 30-second spot on NBC.
Tom Wolper
Aug 11, 2012, 1:06:23 PM8/11/12
to tvor...@googlegroups.com
On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 5:32 AM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.latimes.com/business/fi-ct-olympics-ratings-20120811,0,7036585.story
>
> Perhaps giving us some insight into the state of their business, The London
> Olympics are surprisingly going to be one fo the top 5 television events of
> all time, and the result is that NBC has a good chance of breaking even on
> the games.
>
> I am most interested in the note that people are watching the primetime show
> even when they already know the results - I hope this makes them more likely
> to televise the premium events live next time during the day, which many
> have been arguing would actually improve primetime highlight show ratings. I
> would like to know what percentage of the primetime audience already knows
> the results of one or more major events.
>
By coincidence I have a tab open on my browser with an article from
> http://www.latimes.com/business/fi-ct-olympics-ratings-20120811,0,7036585.story
>
> Perhaps giving us some insight into the state of their business, The London
> Olympics are surprisingly going to be one fo the top 5 television events of
> all time, and the result is that NBC has a good chance of breaking even on
> the games.
>
> I am most interested in the note that people are watching the primetime show
> even when they already know the results - I hope this makes them more likely
> to televise the premium events live next time during the day, which many
> have been arguing would actually improve primetime highlight show ratings. I
> would like to know what percentage of the primetime audience already knows
> the results of one or more major events.
>
the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about Pittsburgh's relatively low
ranking in the Olympics ratings. I will put a link at the end of my
post, but I recommend it only if you have some interest in Pittsburgh
sports ratings. The thing I find of interest and relevant is the
geographic spread of Olympic popularity. It is not uniform across the
country and it would be nice to get some depth into why the ratings
are so much higher in some places rather than others.
The thing I am looking for is the Pittsburgh prime time ratings for
Thursday when the CBS O&O showed a Steelers exhibition game against
the Olympics. The Trib article uses average ratings for the first
twelve evenings which only goes to Tuesday. If it were a regular
season game I have no doubt the Steeler game would trounce the
Olympics but I'd like to know about an exhibition game. The Trib
article notes that the Pirates are drawing viewers to Root Sports
thanks to a (finally) good season and notes that Pittsburgh has one of
the lowest city Olympics ratings when Pirates ratings are high.
Here are the top cities from a sidebar to the Trib article (plus
Pittsburgh, tied for 39th with Cincinnati out of 56 metered markets:
1. Salt Lake City 26.5/47
2. Kansas City 24.3/40
3. Milwaukee 24.2/40
4. Denver 23.9/45
5. Columbus, OH 23.2/38
T39. Pittsburgh 18.6/32
http://triblive.com/news/2380330-74/olympics-pittsburgh-games-pirates-aug-olympic-july-rating-viewers-markets
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