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Rio Olympics Competition Ratings Open 32 Percent Lower Than London

Saturday night draws 19.5 million total viewers

| August 7, 2016 @ 10:38 AM

Olympics

The Olympics are good for business — if the business you’re in is selling TV commercials at a premium, of course.

Fortunately for NBC, that’s exactly the sandbox broadcast plays in, and the Comcast-owned channel nabbed 19.5 million total viewers last night, per TVByTheNumbers. Generally speaking, that’s a lot.

Un-fortunately for the network, the impressive sum was still down 32 percent from London’s opening evening of competition in 2012. The four-years-ago start drew a whopping 28.7 million overall audience members. To be fair to NBC, live TV viewing takes a hit with every year that passes.

Also Read: Rio Olympics: Shootings and Bomb Scares and Muggings, Oh My

Night No. 1 of the 2016 Rio version drew a 5.5 Nielsen rating in the key 18-49 demographic, predictably squashing anything else on broadcast. For what it’s worth, London had pulled a huge 8.8 on its comparable competition kickoff.

To add a bit more perspective to last night’s NBC dominance, the next-highest-rated show was a “48 Hours” rerun on CBS, which managed a 0.4 and 2.6 million viewers. So the gold medal is a bit tarnished these days, but it’s still way better than silver.

Read about Friday’s opening ceremony TV ratings here. Those too were down substantially from 2012.

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From LeBron James to Rory McIlroy, TheWrap selects sports stars from around the world who will not be carrying their country’s flag in Brazil this summer

The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will take place in August without numerous notable names across several sports -- with top athletes dropping out due to concern over the Zika virus, injuries and scheduling conflicts.

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