What If people don’t watch an event? The sponsors, Of course, their money goes down the drain. But they are not the direct sufferers.
So, who is the main sufferer? Well, the broadcaster. A broadcaster pays a fortune to get broadcasting rights. But what if people don’t want to tune in? Your viewership ratings stay low and you fail to rope in more sponsors and more money. This is what happened with NBC during the Beijing Winter Olympics.
NBC paid $7.7 billion to get Olympics broadcasting rights
NBC had paid a whopping $7.75 billion in 2014 to secure American media rights for broadcasting the Olympics through 2032. It made sense. I mean who doesn’t watch the Olympics? And if you pay billions of dollars to win broadcasting rights for multiple editions of the event, it isn’t a bad business deal. Right?
But who knew that the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing would be held in the shadow of blatant human rights violations by the CCP. In 2014, not many knew that the world would be talking about China’s genocide against ethnic minorities like Uyghur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists. Anyhow, by the close of the Beijing Winter Olympics, NBC would have realised the perils of broadcasting the Games from China.
Low viewership
The Beijing Winter Olympics managed very low viewership ratings from the very beginning.
Read more: How Winter Olympics could turn Beijing into a ghost city
It was a record low for the Opening Ceremony in the US. Viewership for the Opening Ceremony averaged just 16 million beating the previous low of 20.1 million for the 1988 edition in Calgary. This was also a huge decline of 43 per cent against the 2018 Games in South Korea.
Read more: Companies that sponsored Beijing Winter Olympics are losing millions of dollars every day
After a dismal Opening Ceremony, the viewership ratings never really picked up in the US. Even in prime-time, the average rating stood at 12.2 million across NBC, Cable or the Peacock streaming service. By contrast, the average for NBC alone was 10 million during the 2018 South Korea Winter Olympics. This is a huge drop of 47 per cent and is enough to put any broadcaster in a tizzy.
How much has NBC lost?
NBC is yet to reveal if the Beijing Olympics were a profitable venture or a loss-making episode.
But latest reactions by experts suggest that it wasn’t lucrative as it appears to be. Andrew Billings, an expert in sports communications, said, “Given the investment, they’ve got to be disappointed right now.”
An unnamed expert connected closely to the Olympics and television has been quoted by Huffpost as saying that for NBC, “this feels like a particularly vulnerable moment.”
Precedent for businesses
We don’t know the quantum of losses that NBC may have suffered. But we do know that NBC has faced a huge loss in viewership, which no broadcaster would want to face. So, the Games were indeed a letdown for the channel
It tells broadcasters and sponsors that you cannot associate yourself with the murderous Chinese regime and still make profits. People simply don’t buy the notion of sports remains sports irrespective of politics, especially when China itself was found politicizing the Olympics.
So, don’t be surprised if all sponsors, investors and broadcasters start blacklisting China very soon when it comes to international sports events.
The reason I didn’t watch ANY winter olympic footage is not because of China, but because of my complete distrust and disregard for American main stream media. My decision not to watch has NOTHING to do with China. The media persistently fail to even talk and acknowledge the blatant problems with the credibility of American elections, and the MSM continue to cover up the failure that is the biden administration, and because of that, I don’t have ANY interest in anything that is even remotely linked to a biased and untrustworthy channel like NBC. Any TV channel that runs a news branch that fails to address this issue is lost to me, and it seems, to a lot of other people, too.
I second this. 🙂
Well said.
You must be one of those Biden election deniers. You are not satisfied with sixty courts dismissing those claims, nor the fact that some of the states Donald lost were administered by Republicans. I’m afraid those 11980 votes in Georgia are probably going to lead to Donald being indicted. What a shame.
Leave it to delusional Trump morons to interject the election lies into Olympics viewership. Don’t worry about your investment in Trump 2024 hats and shirts. While you won’t be able to support his election run, the NY Prison system has reserved that number as his prisoner number after his first conviction.
Leave room in that jail cell for Hilary.
I agree 100%. Woke liberal theology permeates every NBC tv show, “news” broadcast, and sporting event (not to mention most of the commercials)! It’s impossible not to see it … unless you don’t want to see it.
you guys are punks, go swimming in the Covid pool with Donnie.
Triggered much? Lets see… you replied with an insult and brought up the fake covid crap and of course the big go to… Trump, all in one sentence. Big troll or huge idiot? Maybe both
You can’t trust the MSM anymore, so they shouldn’t be given the time of day for anything.
Blame it on the diplomatic boycotting of the Olympics by the US and their allies and thanks to Covid-19.
Who is Akshay Narang? A fxxking caveman who just stepped out of the cave and happened to watched the US media slandering China’s with toxic Americanism propaganda. A person who never stepped beyond his cave entrance and believed shits are edible if he heard it from the media’s. Take your 1st trip out of your cave and fly straight to China and tour it and you will die of shock from the difference from what you heard over the American toxic medias. Jeesshhh….. What a nimcompoop.
I lived in china for 12 years and I’m not saying all the negative western media reports are 100% accurate and unbiased but they are a murdering ethnic cleansing human right violating freaks. (my professor literally disappeared for 2 weeks for supporting hong Kong protests during lecture) I’m glad I’m not living there anymore and I’m not going back.
Blame western countries not China
I don’t know about everyone else but China was just a small portion of why I’ve stopped watching the NBC Olympic coverage completely this year. NBC has been shooting themselves in the foot for the last few rounds of Olympics with too many commercial breaks, skipping over non-American performances, and seemingly filling up half their time with documentaries instead of covering the sport itself.
I quit watching the Olympics long before China. There was a time when the Olympics was a showcase for amateur athletes. Now it’s a showcase for overpaid professionals. Of course this years winter games being held in China didn’t help. I haven’t watched any sports venue on TV for a couple years.
Dude, if there’s any chance to bash China, why not?
But was Tokyo Olympics getting huge viewership also or it was also a huge decline from previous summer Olympics?
So was Japan human right violation the reason of such drop?
People lost interest already in Olympics since a while…
Why would I watch anything on a liberal propaganda outlet like NBC? That’s like watching the Al Jazeera News Network! Left wing liberal propaganda all of the time! Sickening.
I thought Peacock did an excellent job bringing the Olympics. My love is figure skating and I could focus on this sport and watch the highlights every day. Watching great athletes skate has nothing to do with world politics! It is appreciiating the skill and artistry of human beings. “What a piece of work is man” ! (Shakespeare)
Wanda, it’s impossible not to see the liberalism that permeates all NBC broadcasts (and many other broadcast companies). It’s in their commercials, TV shows, news broadcasts, and sporting events! If you don’t see it, it’s because you don’t want to see it.
For the past few Olympics, athletes have been dragging their politics into it. The broadcasters have been pushing their politics into it. Last time we had a figure skater bashing the VP. Athletes who are supposed to be representing our country kneeling for the national anthem. There is a large portion of the country that is sick of this. They have shot themselves in the foot and are now holding board meetings trying to figure out why they are bleeding. The low viewer ratings is less about China and more about self inflicted wounds. If they want to fix this, they should listen to the people that didn’t watch and get back to the sports and competition. Support our country or stay at home!
It would be different if this was the Summer Olympics. People just don’t care enough about watching skiing and ice skating. I know there is more and Curling has caught on, but we would rather watch gymnastics, swimming, diving, weightlifting, wrestling and track and field.
You’ll find weightlifting more interesting than a sport like hockey? And I find figure skating as graceful as gymnastics and love them both. Each sport has its own adherents and I don’t think season has anything to do with it. To each his own.
It’s PAST time the NBA kicked China, Nike, etc. to the curb…! Otherwise boycotts will ramp up, and profits tank.
Skating announcers were terrible, both politically and their criticisms of skaters . Coupled with
the commercials made for a most boring viewing experience.