Olympics and Super Bowl Coverage Lead To NBC's 'Best Feb Ever'

With NBC's broadcast of the Closing Ceremony for the XXIII Olympic Winter Games tomorrow at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, NBCUniversal will wrap up the Best Feb Ever - an unprecedented convergence of the two most anticipated and dominant events in American television that resulted in massive multiplatform consumption.

"While these Olympic Games will once again be profitable for NBC Sports Group, they also created major benefits for the rest of our portfolio, including NBC News, NBC Entertainment, Universal theme parks, our many cable networks, and our owned television stations and affiliate partners," said Mark Lazarus, Chairman of NBC Broadcasting and Sports.

In this new age of media consumption, the SUPER BOWL and Winter Olympics propelled NBCUniversal to a new standard of dominance. NBCU's average primetime television viewership for SUPER BOWL Sunday and Winter Games coverage (26.9 million viewers, through Thurs., Feb. 22) nearly tripled the combined total of the other broadcast networks (9.4 million for ABC, CBS and FOX).

On February 4, NBC televised the Philadelphia Eagles' thrilling victory over the defending champion New England Patriots in SUPER BOWL LII in Minneapolis. Just four days later, America's sporting focus shifted more than 6,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean to the PyeongChang Olympics. Never before had one network televised both mega-events within days of each other.

Since SUPER BOWL Sunday, more than 229 million Americans tuned into the networks of NBCUniversal - far surpassing all other media companies. Millions more streamed the action live on NBCSports.com, NBCOlympics.com, and the NBC Sports app, while even more experienced the events on a multitude of social media platforms.

Best Feb Ever - February First:

• First Time a Network Televised SUPER BOWL and Winter Olympics Four Days Apart
• Super Bowl Produced by Crew of NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL - Pacing to Be First Show in U.S. TV History to Rank #1 in Primetime For Seven Consecutive Years
• First Time NBCUniversal Broadcast Winter Games "Live Across" All Time Zones
• First Time NBCSN Televised Live Primetime Winter Olympics Coverage
• First Time NBC Sports Digital Live Streamed Primetime Winter Olympics Coverage
• First Time NBCUniversal Live Streamed an Olympics Opening Ceremony
• First Live NBC Olympics Stream on a non NBCU-owned Platform with Snapchat "Live"
• First Time NBCUniversal Presented More than 2,000 Hours of Live Winter Olympics Coverage - with 2,400+ hours, comparable to the coverage of the prior two Winter Games combined (Sochi; 1,600+) and Vancouver (835)

Best Feb Ever - Viewership Highlights:

• More than 229 million viewers have watched the networks of NBCUniversal since SUPER BOWL Sunday.
• NBC's SUPER BOWL LII posted a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 118.2 million viewers - which will easily rank as year's most-watched & most-dominant Program, more than doubling the #2 show.
• NBC's post-Super Bowl telecast of THIS IS US scored as the network's most-watched scripted show in more than 13 years, and most-watched drama on any network in 10 years.
• PyeongChang Olympic viewership on NBC/NBCSN peaked at 29.7 million on the opening Sunday (Feb. 11) from 9:45-10 p.m. ET for the women's free skate in the team event and women's slopestyle snowboarding.
• The PyeongChang Olympics has delivered a Total Audience Delivery average of 20.6 million primetime viewers - a figure unmatched by any TV show (minimum three episodes) from Jan. 1 through the May end of the TV season in four years.
• NBCSN posts most-watched month ever - With a Total Day viewership average of 743,000 viewers through Feb. 22, NBCSN is on pace to deliver its most-watched month ever and ranks as the most-watched sports cable network in that span.
• NBC Olympics' "Prime Plus" late night show is averaging a Total Audience Delivery of 8.4 million viewers - marking the most-watched Winter Olympics late night show in 30 years (1988 Calgary Olympics).
• NBC Sports Digital has delivered its second-best month ever for live streaming with 2.2 billion minutes, ranking behind only the Rio Olympics, which had three times more events (306 for Rio compared to 102 in PyeongChang).
• The U.S.-Canada women's gold medal hockey game averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 3.7 million viewers, which included a live NBC simulcast of overtime and the shootout, as well as live streaming by NBC Sports Digital. The NBCSN-only telecast delivered 2.9 million viewers, which is the largest audience ever for the network in the 11 p.m.-2:15 a.m. ET late-night window
• More than 525,000 uniques watched the live stream of the U.S.-Canada women's gold medal game to rank as NBC Sports Digital's fifth-largest hockey audience ever, beating all NHL, IIHF, and COLLEGE HOCKEY games, and trailing only four high-profile games from the Sochi Olympics in more favorable time periods.

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