NBC’s coverage of the Winter Games saw the Opening Ceremony blaze a Total Audience Delivery average of 28.3 million viewers, down slightly from 2014 but still ranking as the most-watched Friday night program on any network since the 2014 Sochi Olympics, according to live plus same day Nielsen fast national data with a 14.7/27 primetime household rating. That also ranks as the third most-watched Opening Ceremony off all time, behind only Sochi 2014 and Lillehammer 1994. Viewership peaked on NBC at 31.5 million from 9-9:15p as Team USA entered during the Parade of Nations. NBC Sports Digital’s Opening Ceremony streaming on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app delivered an average minute audience of 449,000 viewers – more than double the audience for the Rio Opening Ceremony.
Meanwhile, NBC Olympics’ primetime coverage of Saturday’s events posted a TAD average of 24.2 million viewers, topping the opening Saturday of the 2016 Rio Olympics, according to live plus same day fast national data released today by Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics. NBCSN also scored its best-ever afternoon rating and viewership for Saturday’s 2-5p telecast, averaging 4.5 million viewers and a 2.56 household rating.
