Streaming Jumps During Olympics Opening Ceremony: Convivia

Performers dance during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Japan.
Performers dance during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Japan. (Image credit: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Streaming has made big strides since the last Olympic games, according to a new report from Conviva.

During the opening ceremony, streaming activity was up 279% compared to the opening ceremony of 2018.

The quality of the streaming experience was also considerably better. There were 35% fewer start failures, 7% less buffering issues and a 1% higher bitrate than average.

Also Read: NBCU Plans Record 7,000 Hours of Olympic Programming

Most of the streaming activity took place on mobile and desktop, with each capturing a 27% share of viewing time. Connected TV devices had a 23% share and 14% were on smart TVs. 

During the games, NBCU will be heavily promoting Peacock, which will be streaming a lot of Olympic content.

“While we don’t know today what the future will hold for sporting events, or how the challenges of the past year will affect the 2022 Beijing Olympics, change is a given as we look towards the next chance to benchmark how dramatically the way people consume media has evolved,” the Conviva report said.

The streaming data for this report was collected from Conviva’s proprietary sensor technology currently embedded in 3.3 billion streaming video applications, analyzing nearly two trillion real-time transactions per day.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.