Peacock Basks in its Parisian Olympic Success 

The Paris Olympics viewership news is in: NBC, the network that exclusively broadcast the Summer Games, reported that the Paris Olympics set a new viewership record, averaging 30.6 million viewers across all NBCUniversal platforms. NBC also noted its viewership was 82% higher than for the COVID-delayed Tokyo Games (16.9 million), running just slightly ahead of the 2012 London Games, which averaged 30.3 million viewers. 

But did Peacock, NBC’s streaming platform that saw unprecedented investment by the network ahead of the games, earn gold at the Paris Olympic games? By all accounts, this was a livelier Peacock.

• Hoops were a slam dunk. The thrilling men’s gold medal game on the final Saturday of the Paris Games averaged 19.5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, twice what NBC saw in Tokyo, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
  
• Event mashup. If you couldn’t decide whether to watch beach or team volleyball, you could track each simultaneously using the split-screen “Multiview” tool. If you picked one event in particular, you could simply click on that box and choose to watch it exclusively.
  
• Laugh in. While Snoop Dogg gave Michael Phelps swimming lessons on NBC, Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson co-hosted a popular, light-hearted Olympic Highlights show on Peacock.
  
• AI broadcasting. On Peacock, viewers could get a quick daily recap of events narrated by an artificially generated version of broadcaster Al Michaels. ChatGPT reportedly powered the intelligence.
  
• Ad sales triumph. “We sold more advertising for the Paris Olympics than for any other Games, and we delivered for all of our partners,” said Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group.
  
• Streaming Happens. Sports View Group reported, “Led by Peacock, 23.5 billion minutes of Paris Olympics coverage were streamed — up 40% from all prior Summer and Winter Olympics combined (16.8 billion minutes across NBCUniversal digital platforms).”

Streaming Meets Segments

Sports streaming is riding a healthy growth curve. “The Sports Online Live Video Streaming market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 21% during the forecast year from 2021 to 2027,” according to Research and Markets. Streaming sports content no longer resides in the hands of just a few major networks, but NBCUniversal is using the Olympics to give its networks, such as Peacock, a significant lift.

Unlike in Tokyo, which suffered an inventory shortage, NBC pledged — and delivered — a better experience and refinements to its fee-based Peacock service for the Paris Games. In the run-up to the Games, we encouraged advertisers to tap Viant Audience segments to reach tuned-in streaming watchers of sports such as track and field, swimming, gymnastics, cycling, tennis, basketball, volleyball, soccer and diving.

Beyond the Olympics, advertisers can select audience segments with contextual-based, predictive TV viewership and location data for geotargeting. Viant Audiences offers innovative machine-learning predictive segments custom-built from brands’ first-party KPIs, such as online or offline conversions, foot traffic, in-store CPG purchases and more. 

Campaigns on Connected TV (CTV) networks such as Peacock are easy to measure with the right partner. CTV is, of course, cookieless, and for that, you want a people-based technology partner, like Viant, that offers deterministic reach, frequency and measurement, ensuring you reach target audiences and have a holistic understanding of return on ad spend.

Reach out to your Viant rep or go here to get your streaming strategy rolling today.