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This year’s Olympics a tougher sell on TV

4 min read
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The “Olympic spirit” apparently isn’t trickling down to as many potential television viewers as it once did, despite NBC’s relentless promotion of this year’s games.

Early figures are in regarding U.S. viewership, and it’s not a pretty picture for the network and its affiliates.

The bad news came early and often. The TV consumption of the opening ceremonies in Rio last Friday night was down a whopping 35 percent when compared with the lid-lifter in London four years ago. As an article in New York magazine noted, the number of viewers was roughly akin to that of an average “Sunday Night Football” game last fall.

The figures remained close to 30 percent below London’s mark again Saturday night, when the actual athletic competitions were underway. Certainly, more eyes were on the tube when the popular U.S. women’s gymnastic team got into action, or when swimming megastars Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky were in the pool, but the Nielsen figures still didn’t match those from four years ago.

The magazine piece noted millennial audiences were especially unimpressed with the start of the games, perhaps because the broadcasts are stuffed full of commercial breaks. Anyone who sat through the opening ceremonies would be forgiven for wondering whether the time allotted to ads was greater than that afforded the actual program.

There may well be other reasons why interest in the Olympics appears to be waning.

For one thing, viewers have many more options than they did in years past, and they have more platforms on which to view entertainment, with smartphones, tablets and the like. It’s safe to say viewership on non-TV devices is up significantly this time around.

But there also may be a bit of Olympics fatigue. In the run-up to the games, media coverage focused on such negatives as the Zika virus, bodies and/or body parts washing up on the beach in Rio, the threat of crime and kidnappings, the effect of past doping scandals on the participation of Russia’s athletes and the usual rehashing of the graft and corruption associated with the International Olympic Committee.

There’s also the moral dilemma felt by some who see billions spent on Olympic preparations while millions of Brazilians are living in abject poverty. Priorities?

Add to that the fact that the Olympic ideal of old – the idea of fresh-faced amateurs giving their all for their countries – is as out of date as a wringer washing machine.

Certainly, there are athletes in sports that attract less attention who struggle financially to get by while training for the games. How much financial support can there be, really, for a niche sport like synchronized tiddlywinks (That is a “thing” by now, right?). But seriously, while some athletes scrape by, there are just as many who are rich as Croesus. Who really wants to see teams laden with NBA millionaires battling it out on the basketball court? And no one is going to have to hold any benefit events for Phelps or sprinter supreme Usain Bolt.

One recommendation we would make would be to go back to all-amateur competitions. It also might be helpful to scale back the number of events. The IOC might even like to at least think about taking a stronger stance against doping. Would it be too much to ask that someone caught using performance-enhancing drugs be banned for life from Olympic competition. That might wipe out a whole generation of Russian athletes, but so be it. And enough of governments taking advantage of their citizens by pledging billions to stage these games. It’s high time that permanent locations be selected for the Olympics – perhaps Greece for the summer games and Norway for the winter? – and let all countries chip in to maintain the facilities there. That alone would cut the venal activities of the IOC and government officials exponentially.

Our world is changing. The Olympics need to change with it.

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