Rio Games bounce back from early lackluster TV ratings

While not a low for Rio, that’s down 21 % in the key demo from what the net’s primetime coverage of Day 5 of London 2012 pulled in. NBC’s 18-to-49 rating was a 9.9 – runner-up ABC had a 0.7.

Based on those measures, Rio isn’t almost as far behind as London, when NBC did not offer streaming or cable coverage in primetime, as it is based just on broadcast.

Out of 81,000 consumer conversations, Networked Insights says that nearly 46% involved people sharing news and results.

For the week of August 1-7, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: Summer Olympic Games (Sunday), NBC, 29.8 million; Summer Olympics opening ceremony (Sunday), NBC, 26.5 million; Summer Olympics (Saturday), NBC.

NBC contends the overall primetime rating should comprised of all those platforms.

Monday brought a ray of relief for NBC when network coverage averaged 31.5 million viewers, matching the audience level in London.

Now that’s some serious spinning. The network said its “total audience delivery” was 31.5 million for the Olympics on Monday evening, compared to 31.6 million who watched the same night in London in 2012.

In between, from about 8:30 p.m.to 11 p.m., NBC aired seemingly endless swimming coverage – mostly to feature record-breaking athletes Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky, albeit with much more focus on Phelps, who added two more gold medals to his now unmatched collection.

NBC’s prime-time telecast averaged 29.8 million viewers Sunday, higher than Friday’s opening ceremony and nine million more than Saturday’s lackluster first night of competition.

NBC presented the first live stream of an opening ceremony for American viewers which generated 42 million minutes of streaming, the second most for an NBC Olympic stream behind the U.S.

Every dramatic finish, emotional victory, and medal ceremony is available to watch through NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app for iOS and Android.

That’s important because viewers’ desire to watch video on mobile and portable devices will also expand consumption of Olympics content. If NBC’s audience falls short of those guarantees, the network may have to give away commercial time to appease advertisers, which the industry calls “make goods”.