The IOC are already starting my favourite game at major sporting contests – the unfeasibly large audiences. Of course events like the Olympics attract astronomical audiences with global appeal. But much of the world still doesn’t have electricity regularly available and they won’t be tuning in for the Men’s 100m Final at Athens. They’re saying that the global audience will be 3.9 billion.
Lets do some sums.
The IOC are reporting that 300 channels worldwide will carry 35,000 hours of dedicated coverage. Since our very own BBC is carrying 1,200 hours on up to five channels, that begins to put that figure in perspective. And NBC in the US is carrying many hours over plenty of their channels too.
But I suspect that most countries will be televising some coverage during the fortnight.
But these gargantuan claims are based on some very dubious methodology, particularly in an instance where the games have yet to start. In a post Sydney 2000 report, the IOC talk about 3.7 billion viewers – or “nearly every person in the world who had access to a television”. These figures are taken from a survey that the IOC commissioned from Sports Marketing Surveys which says that it’s used “conservative figures” and excludes out of home viewing and news coverage.
Let’s first do some maths in those countries where there’s no problem seeing the Olympics on TV – the UK and the US.
In the US NBC reported that the Sydney games reached a cumulative 185 million Americans. The UN give the US population in 2000 as being roughly 285 million meaning that 65% of Americans watched some of the Games’ coverage. And remember that this is in the region with the greatest number of TV sets per head of population and in a market where the Olympics are one of the most highly sought after rights packages. NBC have agreed to pay $2b for the rights to the 2010 Winter Games and 2012 Summer Olympics. And the Sydney games saw some of the poorest figures in recent times according to that same CNN report.
Interestingly, we see some quite different figures when comparing what the IOC report and NBC themselves reported in the form of their parent company, General Electric’s annual report. As I said above, General Electric gave a figure of 185m, while the IOC state that “more than 228 million” Americans watched some part of the games. Quite a discrepency.
Back in the UK, where a similarly high number of TV sets per head of population exist, the BBC reported to a Parliamentary select committee that 77% of the population saw at least 15 minutes of BBC Olympic coverage.
Let’s examine these numbers in the context of the world’s population – currently given by the UN as being 6,301,463,000 (6.3 billion).
If 4 billion of this 6.3 billion “available audience” were to watch, then 63% of the world would be watching some part of the games – nearly the same percentage worldwide as watched the Sydney games in the US. But not everywhere in the world has access to television.
This is the part of my research that’s been hardest to find out about. The most recent set of figures that I can find only run until 1997 and are from UNESCO. Over the most recent 7 years, no doubt many more people have gained access to television with satellite services burgeoning, but to what extent? And is the rest of the world quite so mad about the Olympics as Western countries are?
I’ll be honest and admit that I don’t know these answers. But in 1997 the World overall had 44% fewer TV sets per head of population than the American average (and “American” in this instance includes both North and South America). In particular, Asia, which makes up 61% of the world’s population, had 190 sets per thousand population compared with 429 in “America” and 548 in “Developed Countries” – that’s a respective shortfall of 56% and 65%.
These figures will have improved by now, but by how much? The two most populous countries on the planet, China and India, also have some of the poorest people living within their borders. Both countries will undoubtedly enter large teams and have good followings back home – but 63% of the population, when the continent as whole probably has less than 250 televisions per thousand (and this will be massively weighted towards more prosperous cities)? I think not.
Of course I can’t prove any of this definitively. And statistics like this always get bandied around at major sporting events, since large sponsors have invested many millions of dollars promote their brand around the world. There probably isn’t a better environment for them to do that either. No dispute there. But let’s not make rash claims.
Returning to that IOC press release, much of the reasoning behind this increase is down to developed world TV stations massively increasing the number of hours they carry, largely as a result of digital offerings and multi-channel availability. But this is not the same as increasing the overall reach of the games. A sports fan, such as myself, may well watch a greater quantity of coverage. But someone who hates sport (they exist – I’ve met them), still won’t be watching. Three out of five of the main TV channels in the UK will have no coverage. Three out of the four biggest US networks will have no coverage. It’ll be easy to dodge if you want to.
The bottom line is that it’s imperative to the IOC that every Olympic Games is better than the previous one. That means bigger, more athletes, more records and most importantly, more audiences. I applaud them for striving to ensure that the games do not disappear onto subscription sports channels, as much prime sport has in Europe. However, the numbers are not always going to increase. Are they?