NBC's sports boss has conceded the 2022 Winter Olympics has been a ratings flop - and accuses COVID of desolate stadiums as well as masked athletes that have turned-off viewers.
Sports CEO Pete Bevacqua put a brave face on the flop and announced in an interview that the network - which holds the rights to the Olympics for $7.75billion until 2032 - predicted the lower numbers.
An average of only 13.2 million viewers a day have watched this year's nightly highlights from Beijing on NBC - roughly half the 23 million who were tuning in at the same stage of the 2018 Games, which were broadcast from South Korea.
"For us, it's been difficult. There's no way around this," Bevacqua told The Hollywood Reporter. "The fact that we've been able to bring these Games to life during a pandemic with only a six-month window between the two [Olympics], the ratings are - of course we always want to have the ratings better - but the ratings for these Games, as I said, are about where we thought they'd be."
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Bevacqua further announced that the venues being empty and many athletes having to wear masks has further hurt viewership.
"It's no secret that athletes in masks, venues without spectators, so much of the passion and excitement, those great moments of Olympic athletes hugging their family and friends and spouses and partners, so much of that magic is just out of necessity not present," Bevacqua announced.
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"Look at the difference in NFL ratings in '21 compared to 20,'" he went on. "I think one of the main differences is because in '20, we didn't have the passionate NFL fan base in those stadiums adding to the atmosphere. We did our best out of necessity. But this year, those fans were back and the ratings showed that.'
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Other issues the games have met have included worries over China's human rights record and the National Hockey League pulling its athletes from the men's hockey tournament due to COVID-19 concerns.
Thursday's primetime coverage of games drew 11.09 million watchers on NBC and 13.2 million across all platforms in primetime, a 32 percent drop from the equivalent night of the PyeongChang Winter Games in 2018 - and that was the smallest drop of the Olympics thus far.
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Officials blamed the coronaviruspandemic played a part in the lack of viewership for last year's delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics.
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The network admitted it had seen "underwhelming ratings" for the Tokyo Olympics, amid a backlash at athletes protesting the American flag and national anthem, and empty stadiums because of the coronaviruspandemic.
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