Report: Winter Olympics off to best ratings start in 12 years

Fresh off a 30-year low in television ratings, the Winter Olympics is seeing much better early returns in 2026, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The Beijing Games in 2022 had low ratings across the board, including a 15.9 million viewer count for the opening ceremony, marking a three-decade low. Overall, it was the least viewed Winter Olympics NBC had ever broadcast. That performance lowered expectations for Milan and Cortina, Italy, this year.

Instead, the first two days of the Games have resulted in significant gains for NBCUniversal. Preliminary Nielsen ratings, combined with Adobe Analytics streaming data, indicate that viewership has increased by more than 60% compared to four years ago during the same two-day period, when the company averaged 11.4 million viewers in primetime.

The broadcasting networks -- NBC, Peacock, CNBC, and USA -- reached a peak of 28.5 million viewers on Day 2, marking the largest audience for any day of Winter Olympics coverage since 2014.

The star-studded event on Friday night attracted over 5 million more viewers, totaling 21.4 million, bringing the numbers closer to those of previous Olympics. For example, during the last Winter Olympics in Italy in 2006, NBC drew 22.2 million viewers for the opening ceremony.

Peacock saw an average of 4.1 million viewers on the first Saturday, with over 1.3 billion minutes streamed. That puts the streaming platform on track to surpass 2022's record of 4.3 billion minutes for the entire Games.

The rebound aligns with NBC's performance at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, which also experienced a significant ratings increase. The broadcast plan this year is nearly the same, with Peacock providing live streams for every event, the Gold Zone whip-around show airing daily on the same platform, and NBC, CNBC and USA offering live daytime coverage, with NBC rebroadcasting key moments during primetime.

--Field Level Media