Advanced Television

Discovery sees record viewership for Winter Olympics

February 14, 2018

The Opening Ceremony of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games and the initial days of competition attracted large audiences on every screen and service across Europe. Discovery has announced the first set of Total Video metrics marking a successful start to the company’s inaugural Olympic Winter Games as Home of the Olympics in Europe, with strong linear and digital engagement on its own platforms and those of its partners.

In the first weekend of PyeongChang 2018:

  • 373 million hours of video was watched across Europe.
  • An average free-to-air and pay-TV audience of 186 million, plus an additional 26 million users through digital and social platforms, resulted in 212 million users viewing the Olympic Games across all platforms.
  • With exclusive content and access to many of the world’s greatest Winter Olympians as experts, new audiences across social media are showing their appreciation with a total of 1.1 million engagements (likes, shares and comments) across Discovery’s social media platforms.

February 9th’s broadcast of the Opening Ceremony across Europe resulted in almost 88 million watching across free-to-air, pay TV, online and social platforms.

Jean-Briac Perrette, Discovery Networks International President and CEO, said: “From the beginning, Discovery set an ambitious vision to bring the Olympic Games to more people across more screens in Europe than ever before. This new approach required a new way of capturing a more accurate picture of fan engagement and we are excited to announce our first set of Total Video – the new ‘TV’ – metrics. The first weekend of PyeongChang 2018 has been incredibly exciting and fans across Europe have been engaged in every minute, from the beautiful Opening Ceremony to the riveting first two days of competition. As the medal table starts to fill up, we are keeping count of the levels of engagement through our own services and those of our partners. We are very encouraged by the early results and are finding great value in this new and more comprehensive way to capture Total Video consumption and engagement.”

A Record-Setting Weekend for Discovery’s Broadcast Channels

Discovery’s Kanal 5 in Sweden achieved its highest ever audience share of 73 per cent on February 10th with the first medal of PyeongChang 2018 going to Charlotte Kalla in women’s skiathlon.

Thanks to an impressive start in the medal race from Norway, achieving nine Olympic Medals in the initial days of competition, Eurosport and Discovery’s Olympic content was consumed by over 3 Million Norwegians on February 11th, and Discovery’s TVNorge achieved a highest-ever 90 per cent audience share for the Men’s 10km Sprint Biathlon Final.

In Germany, Andreas Wellinger’s superb display to win the Men’s Ski Jump Final on February 10th helped contribute to Discovery Germany achieving its own all-time high, delivering nearly 2 Million unique users on owned and operated, digital and social media properties in the first few days of the Games.

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