The 2024 Paris Olympic Games delivered record audiences for media giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) across Europe and the BBC public-service broadcaster in the UK as the major sporting event concluded on Sunday (August 11) with the closing ceremony.
WBD saw record viewership and engagement across all platforms – spanning free-to-air (FTA), pay-TV, streaming, web, and social media – during the games.
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The media heavyweight aired the Olympics across nearly 50 markets in 20 languages on the Max and Discovery+ streaming services, and through Eurosport on linear television.
There was a cumulative reach of more than 215 million in Europe viewing Olympics content on WBD platforms – 23%, and over 40 million, more than the Tokyo 2020 games.
This includes Max (recently launched in 25 European markets) and Discovery+, as well as Eurosport TV channels and free-to-air networks in Norway (TVNorge), Sweden (Kanal 5) and Finland (Kutonen, TV5).
In total, more than seven billion minutes were streamed throughout the games – six times more than Tokyo 2020.
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By GlobalDataOn August 4, WBD set a record in Europe of 600 million minutes in a single day streamed by Max and Discovery+ subscribers.
The packed Sunday featured athletics' men’s 100m final, Novak Djokovic vs. Carlos Alcaraz in the men’s tennis gold medal match, the final day of swimming events, and the women’s road race in cycling.
There were also four times as many unique streaming viewers on WBD platforms, including Max and Discovery+, throughout the games compared to the last summer Olympics, which were held amid the Covid-19 pandemic and in a less favorable time zone.
WBD saw significant subscriber growth across all major markets in Europe, particularly France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the UK.
There were a record number of new paid streaming subscribers over the games period, 77% more than Tokyo 2020.
WBD’s average linear television audiences for Paris 2024 were double those of Tokyo 2020, with huge audience shares – more than 80% for several events – seen across both FTA (Finland, Norway, and Sweden) and Eurosport’s pay-TV network.
In addition, there were more than 4.5 billion video views of WBD Olympics posts on social, nearly 10 times more than Tokyo 2020 and more than four times greater than the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Tokyo 2020 combined.
Andrew Georgiou, president and managing director of Warner Bros. Discovery UK and Ireland and WBD Sports Europe, said: “Paris 2024 has again demonstrated the value of bringing premium sport and entertainment together to drive audience and engagement at scale.
“We’ve maximized this opportunity at these games. Max has proven to be a game-changer for sports viewing with an enhanced product experience and new interactive features which encouraged more subscribers to come on the platform and stay engaged for longer.”
Under a new agreement announced in January 2023, WBD will continue to cover the games on its streaming and digital platforms and hold full pay-TV rights for multiple editions.
This includes the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina and the 2030 edition in the French Alps, and the 2028 summer Olympics in Los Angeles and Brisbane in 2032.
Meanwhile, the BBC's coverage of the Paris Olympics was streamed a record 218 million times online – more than doubling the 104 million streams recorded during the Tokyo games three years ago.
The BBC, which sub-licensed rights from WBD, also drew high viewing figures for its TV coverage, with a peak audience of over six million viewers on 14 separate days.
Keely Hodgkinson's gold medal in the women’s 800m final was the most-watched event with 9.1 million viewers on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
Across the 19 days of competition, 36.1 million viewers watched 15 minutes or more of the Paris Olympics on the BBC – equivalent to 59% of the UK population.
Elsewhere, in the US, national network NBC attracted 30.6 million viewers across its platforms for the Olympics, up 82% (16.9 million) from Tokyo.
On the Peacock platform, 23.5 billion minutes of Paris Olympics coverage were streamed – up 40% from all prior summer and Winter Olympics combined (16.8 billion minutes across NBCUniversal digital platforms).
Over the full Olympic Games, 4.1 million viewers tuned in daily across Peacock and NBCU digital platforms.
NBC holds Olympics rights in the US through the 2032 edition.
