The Paris Olympics propelled NBCUniversal to a gold medal performance in Nielsen’s August Media Distributor Gauge and resulted in 180 million minutes watched across the 17-day event.
The Impact of the Paris Olympics
With 180 billion minutes watched over the 17-day period, the Olympics dominated the media landscape helping to lift total TV viewing in the country by 3% versus the comparable period prior to the Olympics. There is no better example than the Olympics of how NBCUniversal came together — across Sports, Peacock, News, Ad Sales, Distribution, Telemundo, and the Studio and Parks businesses — to deliver the most innovative, biggest, and most complex Olympics in history.
Over the two weeks of the Olympics, NBCUniversal demonstrated the success of those efforts with a total TV time audience share of 17.6% and #1 rankings across the portfolio including:
NBC: #1 broadcast network
USA Network: #1 Sports/Entertainment Cable Network
Peacock: #1 in App Stores
TODAY and Nightly News: #1 in their time periods
NBCU’s success wasn’t limited to Olympic coverage. The Democratic National Convention (DNC) also contributed to the August viewership surge. MSNBC, the primary network for DNC coverage, experienced a 43% spike in viewership compared to July.
NBCU’s broadcast of the Olympics captured the cultural conversation of the nation, eliciting hundreds of press stories and dominating social media with the Olympics trending in the top five every day of the Games across social platforms.
NBCUniversal’s Record-Breaking August Performance
The Paris Olympics propelled NBCUniversal to a gold medal performance in Nielsen’s August Media Distributor Gauge, setting an all-time record in television consumption for a media company since the metric’s inception in November 2023. NBCUniversal soared to new heights, capturing 13.4% of total TV usage in August 2024, the largest share achieved by any media company since the Media Distributor Gauge began tracking. The Olympics proved to be a major driver, as NBCU’s watch-time surged by 3.9 percentage points from July, resulting in a commanding lead.
Notably, NBCU’s growth wasn’t confined to one platform—it was a cross-channel effort:
NBC Broadcast Affiliates: Viewership jumped by an impressive 62%, as fans tuned in for the action-packed Olympics coverage.
USA Network: Benefited from a substantial 47% increase in viewership.
Peacock: The streaming platform saw a robust 39% growth in monthly watch-time.
*The August 2024 Nielsen measurement month ran from July 29 to August 25, encompassing four weeks of data. As always, Nielsen’s tracking period covers Monday through Sunday.
This success provides a blueprint for future major events, emphasizing the importance of meeting consumers where they are—whether on traditional broadcast TV, cable networks, or streaming services.