U.S. viewership for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, a competition clouded by the COVID-19 pandemic, dropped to about half the audience for the London Games in 2012, according to data released by Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal on Monday.
The 17-day event averaged 15.5 million prime-time viewers on the NBC broadcast network and digital platforms, including the Peacock streaming service, the company said in a statement. That represented the smallest audience for the Summer Games since NBC began broadcasting them in 1988.
The total slumped below the 31.1 million viewers who watched the Summer Olympics in London via TV and online outlets, and 26.7 million who tuned in for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, an NBC spokesman said.