• by Wayne Friedman , February 12, 2018

Through the first three days of the Winter Olympics, carmakers have been the big spenders on NBC -- with traditional TV viewing down.

Toyota has spent $5.12 million and Chevrolet has spent $4.4 million for Thursday through Sunday, according to iSpot.tv.

Among other ad brands, Visa is next at $3.3 million, followed by Coca-Cola at $2.3 million; McDonald's with $2.0 million; Intel at $2.0 million; GEICO with $1.7 million; Google Home at $1.6 million; Samsung Mobile with $1.6 million; Walmart at $1.5 million; Peloton with $1.3 million; and Koch Industries at $1.3 million.

All told, automakers have spent $12.3 million. Banks/credit card companies are next with $4.9 million; insurance at $4.8 million; quick-serve restaurants at $3.9 million; and food/beverage at $3.5 million.

The NBC broadcast network has had 259 spots; its sports cable network, NBCSN has had 273; and USA Network has had 86 so far.

Nielsen TV ratings for the NBC Opening ceremony pulled in a total of 27.3 million viewers in average minute audience, and 449,000 viewers from digital platforms -- NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app -- for average minute audience.

On the second night of competition -- Saturday -- NBC says the NBC Television Network posted 21.4 viewers, down 14% from the previous Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where there were 25.1 million viewers.

Results showed similar double-digit declines for the first night of competition --Thursday -- where NBC Television Network posted 16 million viewers down 25% from the 20 million in Sochi.

Unlike this year -- where NBC is aggregating like-to-like viewership from cable networks and digital platforms -- this 2014 Sochi Olympics had no simultaneous live streaming and no additional prime-time Olympic cable coverage on NBC channels.

Adding in those results -- cable networks and live streaming digital platforms -- presents a better picture this year.

For this Olympics, on Saturday, for example, NBC its Total Audience Delivery metric -- average minute viewing across broadcast, cable networks and digital platforms -- was 24.2 million. This would be down 4% from Sochi.