More than 86% of Canadians (86.3%) have watched CBC/Radio-Canada’s coverage of the Rio Olympics during the first 10 days of competition, with audiences peaking at 20.4 million across its television and digital platforms on Sunday.
Nearly 7 million people tuned in for the Games’ marquee event, the 100m final, which saw Canada’s Andre De Grasse capture a bronze medal in a race won by Jamaica’s Usain Bolt.
Audiences peaked at 6.922 million at 9:27 p.m., making it the most-watched moment of the Games to date – representing a 122% increase over the previous high established during the Aug. 5 Opening Ceremony.
The most-watched moments during the first 10 days of competition are as follows:
- Opening ceremony: 3.1 million viewers as Team Canada enters the stadium;
- Day 1: 2.7 million viewers watch as Canada wins bronze in the 4x100m freestyle relay;
- Day 2: 3.4 million viewers watch as Penny Oleksiak wins silver in the women’s 100m butterfly;
- Day 3: 3.4 million viewers for the women’s 100m breaststroke final;
- Day 4: 3.7 million viewers as U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps wins gold in the men’s 200m butterfly;
- Day 5: 3.6 million viewers as Santo Condorelli swims in the 100m freestyle final;
- Day 6: 4.3 million viewers as Penny Oleksiak wins gold in the women’s 200m freestyle;
- Day 7: 3.8 million viewers for the women’s 800m freestyle final;
- Day 8: 4.8 million viewers as Canada competes in the women’s 4x100m medley;
- Day 9: 6.9 million viewers as Canadian Andre De Grasse wins bronze in the men’s 100m.
CBC says its digital platforms also experienced “significant traffic between Aug. 5 and 14, garnering nearly 116 million pageviews and more than 19 million views. Collectively, Canadians have watched nearly 400 million minutes of live and on-demand video online.
U.S. Olympic broadcaster NBC has seen its broadcast ratings decline a reported 17% from the 2012 London Olympics, to an average of 27.8 million, as viewers have migrated online. According to the Los Angeles Times, online users had already streamed 1.86 billion minutes of content via its free online streaming app through Sunday, more than the London and Sochi Games combined.
