Olympics Opening Ceremony TV Ratings Tank, Down 43% From Last Winter Games in 2018

(Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images)

The Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Beijing on Friday ended up a ratings dud.

The ceremony drew “nearly 14 million” TV viewers, according to a release from the network— making it one of the least viewed in Olympic history.

Compared to the 23.8 million people who tuned into the last winter games ceremony in 2018 in Pyeongchang, viewership dropped 43 percent overall. Only 8.7 million tuned into primetime programming with NBC’s Mike Tirico and Savannah Guthrie who led the coverage of the ceremony, which consisted of an extravagant display presented by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The audience for the opening ceremony was also significantly lower than last year’s Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony in Tokyo, which averaged 17 million viewers throughout the program.

It seems as though the Olympics are not immune to the challenges faced by the lack of fans present, resultant from the current state of the Covid-19 pandemic. The excitement that is generally buzzing through Olympic stadiums has been diminished, leading to much less thrilling coverage.

The time zone of these winter games also presents a problem in viewership terms, with China hosting their second Olympics in 14 years, programming does not fall at primetime on either coast.

NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua, however, said in a statement, “Led by extensive multiplatform coverage of the compelling Opening Ceremony…we are off to a strong start that is in line with the expectations of our advertising partners,” claiming that the viewership drop was somewhat expected.

“We look forward to continuing our momentum with the competition tonight and in the weeks ahead.”