Posted on 07/25/2021 9:29:50 AM PDT by Enlightened1
Empty seats, zero atmosphere, diminished team numbers, local protests and a world distracted by coronavirus all combined to deliver just 16.7 million viewers for NBC’s four-hour long broadcast of the Tokyo Olympic Games opening ceremony on Friday. It was the smallest U.S. television audience for the event in the past 33 years.
Keen Olympic watchers would have to go back to the opening ceremony for the 1988 Seoul Games, which attracted 22.7 million TV viewers, to see numbers like it.
It was also lower than the 1992 Barcelona Games, when 21.6 million people tuned in, according to Nielsen data supplied to Reuters, although some critics could see what lay ahead before one athlete had entered the arena for the march past.
As Breitbart News reported, corporate media has been quick to trash the opener as a somber production performed to a “sea of empty seats,” a striking departure from the vibrancy and life that featured Olympics’ past.
According to the New York Times, the performances themselves aimed to “divert the message of the Games away from the pandemic and scandals and toward the more anodyne themes of peace and global harmony.”
“But that messaging may have little resonance with the Japanese public, as coronavirus infections in Tokyo have risen to a six-month high and the domestic vaccine rollout has proceeded slowly,” the Times reported.
During quieter moments in the show however, “protesters outside the stadium could be heard yelling ‘Stop the Olympics” through bullhorns,’” the paper reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
And of course they had to shoe-horn in the BLM aspect with the lighting of the Flame.
A Typhoon this week might finish ‘em (the olympocks) off.
At 16.7 millions, lowest in 33 years when in 1988 they had 22.7 million. Lowest? Maybe my math is wrong, but 16.7 million is a *lot* smaller than 22.7 million, especially when you consider the population increase in the past 33 years. What was 1984 like?
Anodyne themes of peace and global harmony.
New York Times plays with new crack pipe.
Japanese do not like to “lose face”! Not at all!
A Typhoon or several COVID-19 positive test results. Many in Japan are itching to get this over with, even with the loss of revenue.
The Tokyo Olympics have been on again and off again for a year or more, which tends to kill the anticipatory excitement, plus no live audience participation. Not to mention the wokeness factor by some of the competitors.
Wokyo Olympics.
looks like if the athletes aren’t proud enough to rep the country that sent them over there to win & keep mailing it in, then no one should be surprised that the fans don’t want to watch their protests & half a$$ed performances
I haven’t tuned in & won’t even watch beach volley ball.
To be fair, there’s a big reason why the Tokyo Olympics are drawing the lowest TV ratings in the U.S. since the Seoul Olympics. East Asia is so far away that the time zone difference makes it impossible to broadcast any meaningful live events during prime TV viewing times in North America.
SJW scum
Maybe, but drawing 26% less of the TV audience when you have 36% more people compare to 1988 is pretty awful.
Disappoints me that it was that large.
NBC is evil to the core and I wouldn’t give them my time even if they were broadcasting the second coming. Not that I would have to of course.
Much like polls now, the numbers may be exaggerated or skewed on purpose.
And, 16.5 million are Airport TV monitors, train stations, bus terminals... and some woke dentist and clinic monitors.
Well, let’s see. With “wokeness” infecting so many Western sports, many Americans and Europeans are simply tired of it all. And the leftist tv coverage makes a point of reminding viewers of that wokeness every chance it can.
Then you’ve got all the theater regarding coronavirus and the games. Why not allow at least some spectators, even if just vaccinated Japanese? Why pretend that the young athletes themselves are in much danger? Why insist on a somber opening ceremony with nonsense like Imagine instead of the extraordinarily creative and Japanese one they had planned?
Lots of people - from both the West and the East - are to blame for these ratings.
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