Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony Viewership Sees Gold Medal Results For NBCUniversal With Huge Rise From Tokyo

Good news for NBCUniversal — the Paris Olympics are off to a great start with a big win out of Friday’s opening ceremony.

Nearly 29 million tuned in for the extravaganza, according to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

That’s a 68% leap up from the pandemic delayed and empty stadiums of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, which netted a mere 17 million viewers across NBC platforms three years ago.

“Last night’s Opening Ceremony, one of the most ambitious and complex in Olympic history, was a spectacle for those in attendance in Paris, delivered a huge audience across our NBCU platforms, and set records for Peacock,” said NBC Sports President. Rick Cordella. Saturday, basking in a little Olympics glory of his own clearly. “Thanks to the tireless effort of our production and engineering teams, and extensive promotion, we are off to a strong start that is in line with the expectations of our NBC stations, and distribution and advertising partners. We are in great position as we look forward to the next two weeks of competition.”

Needing a little less indulgence, the nearly four-hour long extravaganza saw over 200 delegations of competing athletes traveling down the Seine on barges, some Celine Dion, some Aya Nakamura, some Lady Gaga, some heavy metal, some parkour, some couture, some drag queens and some cultural buttons pushed, and more than a dozen headless Marie Antoinettes, as well as a lot of rain. After the showcase to the world, French President Emmanuel Marcon took to social media to offer his succinct support to the criticized Thomas Jolly  artistic directed effort:

With all that, beyond the pandemic delayed Tokyo Summer Games, there is no fair comparison for yesterday’s opening ceremony. Previous to the competition in Japan, which was set for Peacock’s 2020 debut and obviously was pushed back a year due to Covid lockdowns, all Summer Games on NBC and other NBCU controlled channels and outlets were in the Comcast-owned company’s pre-steaming era. In that context, given NBCU’s push toward programming for the streamer rather than their linear counterparts, there’s not exactly any other direct audience comparisons here.

However, remember this hometown crowd, LA 2028 won’t get off so easy.

The strong Opening Ceremony viewership data for NBCU this Summer Olympics comes on a day that saw Team USA score its first Gold medal and a record breaking Silver in the men’s and women’s swimming.

Sunday will be a big day for Team USA too with Simon Biles making her first appearance of the Paris Games. In her third Olympics, the four-time Gold medal winning gymnast will be before the crowds in qualifying for team and individual events.

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