NBCUniversal’s strategy of placing key Olympic coverage on its new Peacock streaming service appears to have paid off for both the company and its advertisers, according to Hub Entertainment Research’s study about the Tokyo Olympic Games. Furthermore, the report says that 50% of Peacock Olympic viewers said they thought that ads during coverage added to their enjoyment of the Games, compared with just 36% of NBCU Olympic viewers overall.
At the same time, a much greater share of Peacock Olympic viewers said that ads shown during the Olympics were more interesting than ads in regular programming (71%) than did NBCUniversal’s Olympic viewers overall (55%).
Peacock also played an important role in adding to NBCU’s Olympic audience numbers. Among Tokyo Olympic viewers, about 1 in 8 (12%) said they watched the Olympics on Peacock. Overall, by Hub’s measure, Peacock-only viewers (6% of Olympic viewers) accounted for almost one tenth of NBCU’s total cumulative audience.
For those who watched the Olympics on Peacock, 75% were current subscribers and 25% had never sampled Peacock before or were lapsed subscribers. Although not definitive due to a small sample size, of these Peacock Olympic viewers who were not current subscribers prior to the Olympics, most say they will continue to watch Peacock after the Olympics.
“NBCUniversal has a long history of using the Olympics as a media lab to experiment with new services, and this year was no different with their promotion of Peacock as an Olympic coverage destination,” said David Tice, Senior Consultant to Hub and co-author of the study. “The findings from our survey indicate this strategy brought NBCU new users to sample Peacock. Perhaps just as important are our findings that those who watched on Peacock have a more positive attitude towards Olympic advertisers and sponsors. It appears to be a win-win for NBCU and its clients,” he added.
Hub’s Tokyo Olympics study surveyed 1.016 US consumers age 16-74 about their viewing of the Olympics as well as their attitudes towards the Games and its sponsors. All interviews were done in English and data collection was done between August 4 and August 8, 2021. The survey was funded by Hub and independent of NBCUniversal or any Olympic sponsor or organization.