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NBC’s Olympics Coverage Sinks to Another Milestone

Feb 22, 2018  •  Post A Comment

Even on a night when the U.S. women’s hockey team delivered a thrilling shootout win over Canada to claim the gold medal — an event carried in late-night on NBCSN — NBC’s prime-time Olympics coverage had another bad night.

Deadline reports that Wednesday’s prime-time tally of 16.4 million total viewers was the lowest weeknight result to date during the 2018 PyeongChang Games.

NBC, meanwhile, sent out an announcement pointing out that Team USA’s gold medal win in women’s hockey ranks as the most watched late-night program in NBCSN history (since 2003).

“The hockey game registered a Total Audience Delivery average of 3.7 million viewers, which included a live NBC simulcast of overtime and the shootout, as well as live streaming by NBC Sports Digital,” NBC said. “The NBCSN-only telecast delivered 2.9 million viewers, which is the largest audience ever for the network in the 11 p.m.-2:15 a.m. ET late-night window.”

NBC also pointed out that the Peacock Network was No. 1 in prime time for the 70th consecutive Olympic night. The streak began with Day 14 of the 2010 Vancouver Games.

“In addition, more than 525,000 uniques watched the live stream of the U.S.-Canada women’s gold medal game to rank as NBC Sports Digital’s fifth-largest hockey audience ever (behind only four  games from the Sochi Olympics, which featured more streaming-friendly morning and afternoon ET game times),” NBC added.

The network noted that last night’s NBC/NBCSN viewership peaked at 17.9 million viewers from 10-10:15 p.m. ET, for women’s alpine skiing.

Deadline added: “Airing on the second Saturday of the Winter Olympics, the February 17 primetime broadcast was the Games-low so far with 16.1 million TAD viewers. Wednesday to Wednesday, the February 21 Olympics coverage took a 15% fall from February 14.”

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