No, Bloomberg, the Olympics didn’t stumble because of Millennials. It stumbled because of NBC.
Bloomberg and NBC want to blame the audience for not participating in their content the way they expected them to. But if the results were not what they expected, perhaps they should consider that maybe the problem is with the product.
On Friday of last week, Bloomberg wrote an insulting piece outlining the viewership stumbling blocks that NBC has faced with the 2016 Olympics in Rio, particularly with the coveted 18–49 age block which dropped 25%. Ok, so way more than Millennials, but I’ll continue to read. The article goes on to loosely blame the regulars like Snapchat and Netflix, with very little (read: none) criticism at NBC’s presentation of the Olympics themselves, from the actual coverage, to the user experience of the platforms.
On the opening night of the Olympics, I came home from work and set out to figure out the best way to watch the Opening Ceremony live. As a multimedia professional, the Olympics Opening Ceremony is a wonderland of what’s possible with today’s video and presentation technology, something to marvel at every four years. I’ve been a cord cutter for about 8 years now, so let’s see what what this experience was like for what is a growing segment of the population, particularly in that 18–49 year old demographic Bloomberg was referring to.