More than half of the world’s population will have watched the Paris 2024 Olympic Games by its conclusion on August 11, according to IOC President Thomas Bach.
Delivering a press briefing midway through the Games, Bach said Paris 2024 had so far witnessed record-breaking broadcast and engagement numbers.
According to the IOC, the Opening Ceremony broadcast by France Télévisions attracted a record 23.4m viewers in France, representing an 83.3% audience share.
In the USA, the IOC noted that NBCUniversal reported that Paris 2024 consumption on the streaming platform Peacock had already topped the total of Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 combined after only three days.
Warner Bros. Discovery, the media rights-holder for Europe, exceeded the total unique streaming viewers for Tokyo 2020 in the first two days of Paris 2024.
In Japan, up until 1 August, Olympic programming has been watched for one minute or more by 97.14m viewers – 82.7% of the total Japanese audience.
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On the Olympic social media handles, more than 8.5bn engagements have been counted to date, already 40% more than during the entire Tokyo 2020 period.
Bach said: “All these audiences benefit from the incredible images of Paris and France going to the world thanks to Olympic Broadcasting Services and our media rights-holders, Therefore, we can say with great confidence that we are on track for more than half of the world’s population to follow the Olympic Games Paris 2024.”
For Paris 2024, OBS is producing over 11,000 hours of content – more than any previous Olympic Games
The output across both TV and digital platforms is a 15.8% increase on the amount of content produced for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Innovations include more athlete-centric coverage and behind-the-scenes material, as well as cinematic lenses with a shallow depth of field and more data-driven graphics.
Bach also praised the host country France. The IOC President said: “France and the French people have welcomed the world with open arms and open hearts, and given the world a glimpse of France – and a glimpse of the passion of the French people for sport.
“The athletes love it,” the IOC President added. “And this overall excitement is a two-way street. The athletes, with their passion and the unprecedented quality of the competition, inspire the audience; and the audience lift the spirit of the athletes.”
Read more Opening ceremony scores big TV audiences for Paris Olympics
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