While there have been several headlines reporting viewership for the 2022 Winter Olympics is dramatically down on NBC in the U.S., the numbers may be misleading and not counting streaming growth.
Despite the potential ratings miss for NBC and parent company Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), there is a media company winning big at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
What Happened: With the rights to the Winter Olympics across 50 countries in Europe, Discovery Communciations Inc. (NASDAQ:DISCA) has posted strong viewership.
Discovery said its streaming audiences for the first week of the 2022 Winter Olympics surpassed the total of the entire 2018 Winter Olympics. The company also said its new paid streaming subscribers from the 2022 Winter Olympics have already passed the number it acquired from the last Winter Olympics.
Through the first week of competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Discovery had eight times more viewers streaming its coverage than in the same period of the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Discovery reported that it has seen nearly 750 million streaming minutes consumed across its subscription services so far, which is 18 times higher than the same period of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Average minutes per viewer on the streaming services have more than doubled.
Along with streaming growth, Discovery reports that several regions are seeing strong linear television figures including Sweden and Norway, up 83% and 87%, respectively. Discovery is the pay-tv and free-to-air broadcaster in both countries.
“The Olympics are off to a strong start across all our platforms, with Discovery+ at the forefront of this early success as the growth of our streaming service continues to significantly outperform,” Discovery Streaming and International President and CEO Jean-Briac Perrette said.
Perrette pointed out the power and value sports content has in adding subscribers to the company's streaming products.
“As well as attracting a significant number of new Discovery+ subscribers, sports broadens its appeal throughout the whole household and provides consumers an even greater, more retentive value proposition.”
Perrette added that more than one-third of new Discovery+ Olympics subscribers have consumed other content on the platform outside of the Winter Olympics.
Related Link: How To Watch The 2022 Winter Olympics: Opening Ceremonies, Time Difference, Streaming And More
Why It’s Important: The headlines report that Winter Olympics viewership is down significantly compared to the 2018 games. Comcast has reported the 2022 Winter Olympics viewership is down for traditional television, but is where the company envisioned it would be.
The 2022 Winter Olympics saw a 49% decline over the 2018 Winter Olympics for the first Saturday of coverage and a 43% drop in viewership of the Opening Ceremonies.
Traditional television viewership for NBC is also down as the company made all events available live on its streaming platform Peacock for anyone without a cable subscription for the first time.
“When you grade our performance in Tokyo versus Beijing, and when you see the reception that Peacock has received from the Peacock subscribers and the Peacock customers, the fact that you can go there for all things Olympic has been a nice supplement to all of our Prime coverage,” NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua said.
Comcast said despite the lower viewership, its advertisers are happy and the company has had a successful Winter Olympics.
Discovery is hitting viewership growth on both fronts with traditional viewership up in several of the countries where it has free-to-air rights and also leading to strong streaming platform growth.
Comcast will likely be given negative connotation over its Winter Olympics with network viewership down. Investors could look at Discovery as a company that will be named a winner after the 2022 Winter Olympic games.
DISCA Price Actions: Discovery shares are up 2.89% to $30.27 on Tuesday at publication.
Photo: Jernej Furman via Flickr
