The Tokyo Olympics pulled in the smallest audience since NBCUniversal began covering the Summer Games in 1988, pulling in an average of 15.5 million viewers for its prime-time broadcast and digital presentations each night, the company said on Monday.
From the sparsely attended opening ceremony on July 23 through Sunday’s quiet closing event, NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Games was weighed down by the absence of spectators kept away by coronavirus protocols, as well as by the shift toward cord-cutting and streaming by viewers in the United States. Also not helping was the 13-hour difference from New York and, according to many viewers, the 7,000 hours of footage spread over several channels and platforms.