The watery spectacle of Friday’s Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Games delivered 28.6 million viewers for NBCUniversal platforms, making it the most-watched kick off for a summer Olympics since London in 2012.
“Last night’s Opening Ceremony, one of the most ambitious and complex in Olympic history, was a spectacle for those in attendance in Paris, delivered a huge audience across our NBCU platforms, and set records for Peacock,” said NBC Sports President Rick Cordella. “Thanks to the tireless effort of our production and engineering teams, and extensive promotion, we are off to a strong start that is in line with the expectations of our NBC stations, and distribution and advertising partners. We are in great position as we look forward to the next two weeks of competition.”
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The theatrical, four-hour ceremony that aired live on Friday afternoon in the U.S. came in 10 million viewers higher than NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Tokyo opening ceremony in 2021 and more than 2 million higher than Rio in 2016, according to NBCUniversal.
The traditional procession of the national teams from each competing country was done this time via boat down the Seine — and event organizers did not disappoint on the promise of arresting visuals to kick off the event that the nation aims to be a showcase of modern France.
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NBCUniversal spread the Opening Ceremony across its linear and streaming platforms, running live from 1:30 p.m. to 5:40 p.m. ET and repeating in primetime hours from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. ET. Live stream coverage via Peacock delivered more than 2.5 million viewers. The Telemundo Deportes presentation on NBCU’s Spanish-language network brought in another 666,000 viewers.
Citing “custom fast national data” from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, NBCU reported that the Opening Ceremony was the most streamed entertainment event in the four-year history of the Peacock streamer.
All told, NBCU platforms generated more than 1 billion streaming minutes viewed on Friday, which is six times the viewership generated by the Tokyo summer Olympics during the comparable frame.
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