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Night Light | Going Gold 🦅

Night Light | Going Gold 🦅

We’ve had a lot of new subscribers lately. If you’re just joining us now, welcome to Night Light. I’m Reed, the CEO of Night. For the last eight years, we’ve represented some of the biggest creators on the internet.

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Turns out we are Actually Watching the Olympics

At the beginning of last week, I was very skeptical about what the US viewership would be for the Paris Olympics. It felt like there wasn’t a lot of excitement this year, but I also feel like there’s a lot going on in the world right now. I was also worried that people wouldn’t use the Peacock app (judging from Tokyo in 2021). Lastly, we’ve seen a decline in viewership over the last four Summer Games, leading me to believe this year wouldn’t be much different.

Average Primetime Olympic Viewership over time

However, after the opening ceremonies last Friday, which posted 30 million viewers, it looks like we’re seeing the exact opposite. I’ve seen many reports stating that viewership of the 2024 Olympics is up 79% compared to the Tokyo Summer Olympics, with a huge portion of it (4.5 billion minutes) happening on Peacock.

Here are the things that led me to have doubts…

1️⃣ The Fragmented Media Landscape:

The media environment has become more fragmented with the rise of various streaming options and platforms (Peacock has the rights to the Olympics).

2️⃣ Slower Streaming Adoption for Sports:

The transition to streaming has been slow, and it’s taken time for consumers to get used to watching live sports events on platforms like Peacock.

3️⃣ Lack of Marketing and Awareness:

Last year, many of us didn’t know we could watch the Olympics on Peacock—not surprised that NBC is focusing more of their efforts on marketing this year.

4️⃣ Changing Viewing Habits:

People's viewing habits are changing, with more consumers preferring on-demand content over live broadcasts. It also doesn’t help that some of the biggest events take place very early in the morning. For example, if I want to watch the Women’s Team Finals in Gymnastics, I have to watch at 9:15 a.m. Pacific.

5️⃣ Declining Linear TV Viewership:

There has been a general decline in linear TV viewership overall.

So far this has been big for Peacock…

The way we’re watching the Olympics (and the rest of live sports) is noticeably different this year. I remember when the only two ways to watch the Olympics were to wake up at 2 a.m. to watch live events in Tokyo or catch highlights of the popular events the next day. Now, complete coverage of the events is available on Peacock. I find myself exploring more events that I never would have watched before. Who knew Women’s Pistol was this badass?

Siiiiick.

I also think the Gold Zone (Red Zone but for the Olympics) was a really good move. Taking something that works so well for the NFL and applying it to Olympics coverage works well for live events. I’m still not sold on Artificial Intelligence Al Michaels. I think it’s going to get old fast, although I do think it’ll open the door for the NFL to use voices from prominent broadcasters like John Madden (RIP to the 🐐).

The Big Takeaway:

It turns out we are watching the Summer Games in Paris. Peacock seems to have fixed many issues since the Summer Games in Tokyo three years ago. I imagine we will see more streaming services experiment with ways to cover live sports (like Red Zone and Gold Zone).

And… it looks like we have even more peak athleticism.