DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PEACOCK AND NBC APP TV
Almost everything on traditional TV is pulling in numbers sharply lower than five years ago, with many programs and networks off by 30, 40, even 50 percent. Fact is, anyone who pays attention to the linear TV ecosystem cannot at all be surprised at the ratings for Tokyo. ➽ But Is It Actually a Surprise? Acknowledging that these numbers are awful doesn’t mean you also need to buy into the notion that they represent some shocking disaster or repudiation of NBCU’s coverage. “I imagine that the likes of Toyota and Geico are going to be offered some freebies in Sunday Night Football,” he says. While that last part isn’t all that unusual - networks regularly overpromise audience delivery - Crupi wouldn’t be surprised if NBC had to start offering so-called “makegoods” to its clients. Whether or not Shell’s forecast proves accurate, Anthony Crupi, a veteran reporter on the advertising beat who now serves as sports media reporter for Sportico, tells me NBC’s prime-time Olympic ratings “are actually down a lot more” than folks on Madison Avenue expected, coming in well below the numbers the network guaranteed to advertisers. Comcast CEO Jeff Shell nonetheless Thursday insisted the company is “going to be profitable on the Olympics,” despite admitting some “bad luck” with how the competition itself has unfolded.
But the simple fact is that TV viewership is still what drives ad sales, and turning a profit on the Games is undeniably a more difficult challenge when ratings take a dive. Digital viewership for Tokyo is setting records, and those eyeballs are more monetizable than ever. rights to the Games for another 11 years, until 2032. Execs can talk up “surging digital views” or “boosting signups for Peacock” all they want, and such talking points aren’t without some merit. No amount of spin can hide the fact that a big chunk of the audience has simply abandoned watching NBC’s carefully packaged prime-time presentation of the Olympics, and that this scenario is not what NBCU parent company Comcast had in mind when it committed nearly $8 billion back in 2014 to extend its hold on U.S. The technical term for this kind of Nielsen performance is “yikes.” It’s too soon to say precisely where 2021’s ratings will end up, but the first few days of data suggest a decline north of 40 percent isn’t out of the question. That changed in Rio back in 2016, but even with a nearly 20 percent drop, those Games still pulled in an average prime-time audience of just over 25 million viewers. The network’s press releases bragging about huge tune-in practically wrote themselves, with total viewer numbers often cracking 30 million-plus for summer Olympiads as recently as London 2012. During the first 15 years of the 21st century, NBC’s summer Olympics numbers defied gravity, adding audience even as almost everything else on linear TV declined.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Imagesįor decades, Nielsen’s verdict on the Games was the easiest way for advertisers and journalists to judge whether or not NBC’s coverage was resonating with viewers. But while it’s pretty easy to craft a negative narrative around week one of the Games, the truth about Tokyo is actually a bit more complicated. Throw in the premature exits of several star competitors (most notably Simone Biles) and it’s hard to argue the Olympics have gotten off to a storybook start for NBCU. Prime-time TV viewing levels on some nights are barely half what they were during Rio 2016, causing some advertisers to begin talking about compensation for lower-than-expected ratings. Less than a week into the Tokyo Games, early gripes have ranged from the usual annoyance over chatty commentators and those ever-abundant advertising breaks to more 2021-specific criticisms concerning the confusing ways in which NBCUniversal has divvied up events across its various platforms or the less-than-ideal user experience offered by newbie Olympics streamer Peacock.Īnd yet as bad as the cultural kvetching has been for NBC, the Nielsen numbers have arguably been even worse. Head to /buffering and subscribe today!Īfter a one-year pandemic delay, Americans are coming together this summer to participate in one of our nation’s favorite semiannual traditions: bashing NBC for its Olympics coverage. This story first ran in Buffering, Vulture’s newsletter about the streaming industry. Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photo by Peacock
0 kommentar(er)
