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make its Olympic #s
Viewership should top 1998 Nagano winter games
By Kevin Downey
Chalk it up to a renewed sense of patriotism or simply the fact that the games are being played on American soil for the first time since 1980, but when the Salt Lake City winter Olympics opens on Friday, its ratings are expected to easily surpass those of the 1998 winter games in Nagano.
Most media buyers expect NBC to beat CBS’s 16.3 rating for the Nagano games and meet its rating guarantee to advertisers.
NBC is projecting a 17.8 household rating and guaranteeing between a 16 and a 16.9 household rating for the 17 days of coverage.
Officially at least, NBC executives won't comment on ratings, but they are forecasting a huge audience for the games, as one would expect.
"These Olympic games will be among the top 10 most-watched TV events in history among total viewers," Randy Falco, president of the NBC Television Network and chief operating officer of the NBC Olympics, told reporters in a conference call last week.
"That means that there will be anywhere from 180 to 190 million unique viewers to NBC during those 17 days."
Most media buyers and analysts think NBC will hit its ratings forecasts.
"I think NBC is completely reasonable and will make those projections," says Shawn Bradley, vice president and chief operating officer at the Bonham Group Market Research Company.
"They’re only projecting six-tenths of a point higher, at least for the guarantee, than what the Olympics had in Nagano. I think they’ll be able to achieve that pretty easily, even given the recent downturns in viewership."
Lyle Schwartz, senior vice president and director of media research at The Media Edge, agrees that ratings will be strong even though viewers have been migrating away from sports and the broadcast networks for years.
"The Olympics is going to do well, relative to the average primetime programs," he says.
"It consistently outperforms the average marketplace, which is how we must judge it. You can’t judge it from Olympiad to Olympiad because the way people watch TV changes over time."
NBC is also expected to get a boost in viewership because many of the games will be broadcast live. The network is actually referring to its coverage as "plausibly live," since at least some of the games will end up being tape-delayed.
There’s also a sense among media buyers that stronger patriotic sentiments since the terrorist attacks may attract more viewers to the games.
"If there is a year to be in the Olympics, this is it, based on everything that happened on Sept. 11," says Susan McClellan, national TV and radio analyst at Empower MediaMarketing.
"The whole thought of people cheering for American athletes on American soil will be a draw for folks."
If NBC is thought to have one trouble spot it’s in attracting younger viewers to the games.
The network addressed that issue in last week’s conference call by pointing out a marketing effort directed at younger viewers and mentioning the addition of games that appeal to younger viewers, like snowboarding, which debuted in 1998.
"Speed, risk and edginess are very pronounced in the winter Olympics," said Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC sports and Olympics. "I mean, outside of figure skating and curling, almost every single thing in the games is tied up in speed."
Still, some media researchers think the difficulty in attracting younger viewers, in general, will hold ratings down a bit.
"I made my projections before the tragic events of Sept. 11," says Shari Anne Brill, vice president and director of programming services at Carat.
"Even with that, I am going for a 15 or maybe a 15.5 household rating and 24 share, but I tend to take a conservative tack with ratings."
Ultimately, most buyers and analysts think that ratings for the Olympics will come down to the events themselves.
"The Olympics is quirky because, if the U.S. teams are in it, the viewers will stay with it," says Roy Rothstein, vice president and director of national broadcast research at Zenith Media Services.
"But if they get eliminated right off the bat, it’ll be tough."
Whatever ratings NBC ends up with, though, the games are already considered to be a success from a financial standpoint.
The network had sold 98 percent of commercial time on the games as of last week, and is fully expected to hit its goal of $720 million in ad revenue, the most ever for a U.S. Olympics telecast.
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WINTER OLYMPICS Historic Ratings - Opening & Closing Ceremonies |
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Opening Ceremony |
Closing Ceremony |
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| Location |
Yr |
Net |
Dte |
Rtg |
Shr |
Hms |
Vrs |
Dte |
Rtg |
Shr |
Hms |
Vrs |
| Nagano |
'98 |
CBS |
Feb. 7 |
12.3 |
22 |
12.0 |
19.8 |
Feb. 22 |
12.0 |
18 |
11.8 |
18.4 |
|
Lille- hammer |
'94 |
CBS |
Feb. 12 |
20.9 |
34 |
19.7 |
33.8 |
Feb. 27 |
22.9 |
34 |
21.6 |
34.5 |
| Albertville |
'92 |
CBS |
Feb. 8 |
14.5 |
24 |
13.4 |
24.0 |
Feb. 23 |
13.4 |
20 |
12.3 |
20.0 |
| Calgary |
'88 |
ABC |
Feb. 13 |
14.4 |
35 |
12.8 |
N/A |
Feb. 28 |
17.2 |
27.2 |
15.2 |
N/A |
| Sarajevo |
'84 |
ABC |
Feb. 8 |
11.6 |
18 |
9.7 |
N/A |
Feb. 19 |
17.0 |
25 |
14.3 |
N/A |
| Lake Placid |
'80 |
ABC |
Feb. 14 |
21.0 |
33 |
16.0 |
N/A |
Feb. 23 |
28.9 |
47 |
22.1 |
N/A |
|
Inns- bruck |
'76 |
ABC |
Feb. 4 |
23.2 |
37 |
16.2 |
2.0 |
Feb. 15 |
18.6 |
29 |
1.3 |
2.1 |
| Sapporo |
'72 |
NBC |
Feb. 2 |
19.1 |
33 |
11.9 |
N/A |
Feb. 12 |
13.0 |
22 |
8.1 |
N/A |
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Source: Nielsen Media Research -
Annual Sports Reports; Galaxy Explorer |
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February 5, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.
