Advertisers Complain About "Plummeting" Ratings of NBC's Olympics Coverage

It's German -- I'm saying Die Media, Die!

NBC Universal and its advertisers are becoming worried about the success of Olympic broadcasting as TV ratings plunge and star athletes struggle, Variety reported on Tuesday.

Low TV viewing numbers and early exits from star athletes like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka have caused anxiety from Olympic advertisers, Variety reported.

Thank you, Simon Biles.

Despite beating competitors' nightly program views, the Olympics are "clearly not what NBC, our agency or our clients were looking for," an unnamed media buying executive told Variety.

Last week AdAge reported that the networks' ratings are so low that they're down to claiming that Nielsen is "undercounting" their viewers, and demanding that Nielsen's ratings "accreditization" be suspended.

I assume the "supsension of accreditization" would be for the purpose of telling advertisers they're not entitled to rebates or make-goods* for ratings lower than promised. Because the ratings are wrong for Vaguely-Stated Reasons.

From Ad Age:

Media trade body VAB is calling on the Media Rating Council to suspend accreditation for Nielsen's national TV ratings amid continued problems stemming from the data giant's COVID-19 workarounds.

MRC accreditation is what gives Nielsen TV ratings their legitimacy to be used as currency in billions of dollars worth of network TV deals.

A commenter wondered whether the actual advertisers paying millions of dollars for a guaranteed level of viewership would buy that excuse.

Apparently not!

While primetime broadcast numbers have increased since the opening ceremony, advertisers, who have spent more that $1.2 billion on the games, are concerned about the sharp decline in views compared to the 2016 Rio Games, Variety reported.

Yeah I'll bet.

Here's a nice Olympics story: An Iranian judo player defected to Mongolia after his coach told him to deliberately lose a match, because if he'd won, he'd have to go on to wrestle an Israeli.

Well, the Iranian defector won a rare silver medal for Mongolia.

He dedicated the medal to... Israel.

"Thank you to Israel for the good energy. This medal is dedicated also to Israel," Mollaei told an Israeli Sports Channel, according to the Washington Examiner. "I hope the Israelis are happy with this win."

That said, to hell with the Olympics and to hell with NBC and to hell with the whole stinking corrupt totalitarian media.

* Make-goods are "free" advertising slots offered to advertisers when the network fails to deliver the ratings they promised. Obviously this costs the network the money they could have gotten from selling those slots, so they'd very much like to be able to tell advertisers "Nielsen's numbers are wrong, everyone loves us!"

288 if people were allowed to anonymously send us their viewing schedule through the mail, you'd see how very very high our ratings are!

Especially in the blue capital cities of swing states!!!

Posted by: The Media

posted by Ace at 01:58 PM

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