Covid, Uyghurs and viewer apathy: is Beijing 2022 in danger of a US ratings flop?
Over the 17 days of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, more than 70% of the American population tuned in to watch on NBC, which has owned the exclusive US broadcast rights since 1988. The official audience figure of 215m domestic viewers far exceeded guarantees to advertisers and represented the apotheosis of the network’s star-driven storytelling ethos under longtime NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol, one of the last high-profile sports TV impresarios.