Another NBC Fail! Network's Olympics Ratings Are Lowest Ever
Feb. 25 2018, Updated 9:24 p.m. ET
The Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games are reportedly rated the worst ever in NBC viewership history.
It's another big fail for the network on the heels of Today Show anchor Matt Lauer being fired for sexual harassment and Megyn Kelly failing to inspire talk show ratings gold.
This year's Winter Games in South Korea reportedly saw the number of views decline by 24 per cent compared to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, within the 18 to 49 years demographic.
That's bad news for NBC after the network invested $12 billion to cover years of Olympic competition; it has had to offer free ad time to advertisers because of the poor viewer numbers.
The 2018 Winter Olympics are a far cry from the 2012 London Summer Games, which grabbed an average of 31.1 million viewers.
As CNN Money has reported, the Olympics are now looking like "more of a burden than a boon" for NBC.
A number of experts have weighed in about the ratings plunge for the Olympics this month, citing the poor performance of many American athletes who failed to win medals, and the rise of streaming.
In Pyeongchang, there weren't any highlights that even came close to the famous "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic hockey team or the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan ice skating competition drama.
However, the last three Games have been profitable for NBC, and the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics set a record Olympic profit of $250 million. The network expects to again make money from Pyeongchang.
Still, the ratings drop is bad news for NBC, which was hit with scandal when the network's big morning star Lauer had to be ousted over sexual harassment allegations.
Then a pricey NBC hire, former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, failed to impress viewers on her new talk show.
Kelly has insulted stars Jane Fonda and Debra Messing while interviewing them for her NBC gig.
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NBC producers did NOT send Kelly to the Olympics.
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