Maude Charron and Andre De Grasse, Flagbearers of Team Canada, are seen waving their flag on the team boat during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 26, 2024 in Paris, France.Lars Baron/Getty Images
Observers say a bump in early Olympics ratings among Canadian viewers is likely thanks to a manageable time zone difference, varied viewing options, viral online highlights and more homegrown star power.
CBC touted bigger average daily streaming numbers for the first three days of Paris 2024 compared to past Games, noting increases of 68 per cent versus Tokyo 2020 and 71 per cent versus Beijing 2022. It also says daytime TV audiences jumped 29 per cent over Tokyo.
Linear viewership stayed about the same with roughly 20 million Canadians tuning into CBC/Radio-Canada’s Paris 2024 coverage on either an English or French TV network.
The public broadcaster says 13.3 million viewers watched at least part of Friday’s opening ceremony on CBC, TSN, Sportsnet and RDS, while an additional 1.9 million streamed it online – about a third more than the Tokyo and Beijing ceremonies.
Sports business expert Michael Naraine says the six-hour time difference has made it easier for Canadians to tune in than Asia’s roughly 12-hour gap. He notes the Canadian men’s basketball team’s game against Australia took place at 8 a.m. ET Tuesday, which was ideal for Toronto commuters watching on their phones.
The Brock University professor expects ratings to increase more when gold medal swimmer Summer McIntosh seeks additional hardware in the women’s 200-metre butterfly Wednesday and the men’s national basketball team, which is composed mostly of NBA players, plays Spain on Friday. By comparison, NHL players didn’t play the Beijing Games.
Sports media professor Laurel Walzak of Toronto Metropolitan University says fans are now consuming Olympics content in different ways, pointing to an increase in highlights being circulated on X, Instagram and TikTok.
Naraine says there’s a “symbiotic relationship” between traditional broadcast and social media, as digital content creators share short clips of the Games that drive more viewers to the mainstream networks.
He points to clips of Snoop Dogg providing commentary as NBC’s special correspondent and a photo of U.S. gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, a.k.a. “Clark Kent,” sleeping on the sidelines while wearing glasses as examples of Olympics content being circulated online.
“You have these influencers on TikTok making videos about Snoop Dogg talking about dressage, or Clark Kent sleeping all day on the U.S. men’s gymnastics team and then getting a perfect score on the pommel horse,” says the professor of sports management and marketing at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.
“That really resonates with younger demos, and then as it goes viral, it captures a bit of the older demo and then boom, it makes people want to watch the live content, potentially on their television sets.”
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