The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics opened with an opening ceremony Friday that averaged 21.4 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, according to preliminary ratings from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics.
Official viewing information for the Nielsen Big Data+ panel will be posted on Tuesday. But for now, NBCUniversal reports that this year’s Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony saw a 34% increase in attendance over the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony (using a similar methodology, it drew 15.9 million viewers).
Coverage of the ceremony was broadcast live from Italy and aired in the afternoon (“Milan Prime”), followed by a prime-time presentation.
“We’re off to a strong start with Friday’s captivating opening ceremony, highlighted by a historic city, scenic mountain range and athlete parade,” NBC Sports president Rick Cordella said in a statement. “The opening ceremony audience exceeded our expectations and we can’t wait for the next two weeks of competition.”
The Peacock opening ceremony averaged more than 3 million viewers, making it the most-streamed Winter Games, according to NBCU. The company also noted that “streaming consumption for the Milan-Cortina Olympics across NBCUniversal platforms exceeded 700 million minutes through Friday, the highest ever for a Winter Olympics and 2.5 times more than the 2022 Beijing Olympics over the comparable period.”
Opening Ceremony also boosted Friday’s episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” as Talker posted the most-watched telecast since Thanksgiving (2.3 million viewers).
NBC is once again choosing not to use the massive Super Bowl leadout to promote new, returning, or existing entertainment programming, so the Winter Olympics will see an even bigger ratings boost on Sunday. Instead, it will quickly return to covering the Winter Olympics instead, as the network did in 2022.
On Sunday, Feb. 8, after Vince Lombardi’s trophy is hoisted at the end of Super Bowl LX, NBC Sports will continue its Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics primetime show, “Primetime in Milan,” beginning at approximately 10:45 p.m. ET. This includes women’s downhill (which also includes Lindsey Vonn, who is aiming for gold as part of her comeback) and team figure skating.
