The 2018 Winter Olympic Games won’t be remembered fondly by the folks at NBC who saw Olympics ratings crash and burn. Simply put, folks just weren’t tuning into the coverage NBC provided, especially at the end of it all.
According to Dominic Patten of Deadline, the final Friday of NBC’s Olympics coverage marks a new low for the network. He wrote that NBC and NBCSN’s combined primetime coverage garnered a 9.2/16 in metered market results, which is an “all-time low for an Olympics that is on track to be the lowest ever.”
“Peering Friday-to-Friday, last night took a fall of just over 29% in the early ratings from February 16, which itself was matched for a low at the time. Compared to February 22’s Russian dominated primetime skating drama, last night took a 23% crash. Put just NBC’s metered market ratings of last night’s primetime up against the results of the final Friday of the NBC-only broadcast Sochi 2014 and the outcome is a 10% drop from just over four years ago.”
NBC did see one huge moment from these games, which was when Shaun White won gold on his final run during the men’s halfpipe competition. Only one event in history was streamed more than that gold-medal-winning run.
But overall, NBC’s coverage of these games proved to be a huge disappointment. And when you consider all the talk about how NFL ratings are in trouble, it’s clear those concerns are overblown in comparison to the debacle that was NBC’s 2018 Olympics ratings flop.