Big Olympics Ratings For NBC. But How Did Beach Volleyball Do?

NBC Beijing 2008 Olympics logoWhile NBC's overall ratings have indeed been golden for the Beijing Olympics, one major media agency says the major problem of determining viewership for individual events still exists.

Steve Sternberg, executive vp of audience analysis of Interpublic Group's Magna, says that because of what he calls an archaic rule, NBC is still allowed to tell Nielsen exactly which time periods to be rated--all of which makes analysis of specific events impossible.

For example, he noted that Thursday, August 14, the final hour of the women's gymnastics finals--one of the most highly viewed Olympics events, one which had the U.S. fighting for gold and silver medals--was simply not included in Nielsen's ratings.

"Anyone trying to get a handle on how individual events performed, simply cannot do it," he writes. "We've asked Nielsen to eliminate this ludicrous rule, or at least suspend it for major events like the Olympics."

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This also occurred on Monday, August 11, for more than an hour at the end of the men's gymnastics finals. Parts of the opening ceremonies on Friday, August 8 were also not rated.

Typically, in those periods where NBC does not ask for ratings, it does not run network TV commercials--giving all of the time to its local station affiliates. From its point of view, therefore, there is no need to determine national ratings during these time periods.

As the two-week athletic event has progressed, Sternberg notes that more viewers are turning to the Internet to see video of the events. After the first three days, the percentage of NBC's overall viewership (its so-called Total Audience Measurement Index, TAMI, of unique viewers on TV, online, mobile, and TV video on demand) had traditional TV slipping to 91%-92% from 94%-95%, while online increased to 7%-8% from 4%-5%.

Magna also notes that about 23% of the Summer Olympics telecast on NBC during prime time has gone to TV commercials, with 16% of that going to network advertisers, and 7% going to local marketers. This is good news. Sternberg says it is less clutter than the typical prime-time broadcast program, which averages about 28% to 30% commercials.

But NBC has more commercial breaks per hour--6 to 7 (the average number of network primetime breaks are 5 per hour). All this results in a shorter average commercial pod--2 minutes and 15 seconds versus the average prime-time commercial pod of 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

The analysis shows that average ratings during the Summer Olympics in the second week generally decline because the popular swimming and women's gymnastics events have concluded.

So far--through August 15--NBC has spent the most time promoting its new series "My Own Worst Enemy," which had 18 on-air promos. Returning shows "Heroes" and "Chuck" had 11 apiece. The new "Kath & Kim" had 9; with "E.R.," "The Office," and "Lipstick Jungle" each with 7.

NBCU Total Exposure to Summer Olympics *

Date

Television

(P2+ reach)

Online

(Uniques)

Mobile

(Uniques)

TV VOD

(Uniques)

TAMI

Fri. 8/8

(Avg. P2+ rating -12.2)

70,144,000

(94.0%)

 

4,216,202

(5.7%)

210,333

(0.3%)

42,251

(0.1)

74,612,786

(100%)

Sat. 8/9

(8.4)

92,475,000

(94.6%)

 

4,831,733

(4.9%)

424,974

(0.4%)

67,439

(0.1%)

97,799,146

(100%)

Sun. 8/10

(11.3)

107,363,000

(95.0%)

 

5,116,044

(4.5%)

494,506

(0.4%)

67,439

(0.1%)

113,059,502

(100%)

Mon. 8/11

(10.5)

94,765,000

(91.9%)

 

7,807,103

(7.6%)

476,062

(0.5%)

124,337

(0.1%)

103,172.502

(100%)

Tue. 8/12

(11.9)

96,769,000

(92.1%)

 

7,723,336

(7.4%)

471,639

(0.4%)

113,357

(0.1%)

105,077,332

(100%)

Wed. 8/13

(9.7)

93,048,000

(92.2%)

 

7,351,977

(7.3%)

485,756

(0.5%)

71,863

(0.1)

100,957,596

(100%)

Thu. 8/14

(10.4)

93,620,000

(92.2%)

 

7,352,263

(7.2%)

507,897

(0.5%)

21,961

(0.0%)

101,502,121

(100%)

Fri. 8/15

86,463,000

(91.0)

7,938,428

(8.4%)

583.879

(0.6%)

n/a

94,985,307

(100%)

 

 


 


 

 


 


Average

91,831,000

(92.8)

6,542,136

(6.6)

456,843

(0.5%)

65,808

(0.1%)

98,895,787

(100%)

 

 


 


 


 


 


Source: NBCU

* Television - Nielsen Media Research; Online and WAP uniques - Omniture; Mobile VOD unique - carriers; TV VOD set-top unique - Rentrak

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