Its coverage was also streamed 218 million times, but fails to reach 36.4m who watched Tokyo 2020 on linear

BBC Olympics 2024

The BBC had a total TV reach (15 minutes viewing or more) of 36.1 million for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, slightly less than the 36.4 million who tuned in for Tokyo 2020. 

It also peaked at over six million on 14 days, and had its coverage streamed 218 million times during the just over 17 days of the event. This is more than double the 104 million streams for Tokyo 2020, perhaps benefiting from a closer time zone that put the action during the working day.

The peaks included 9.1 million watching Keely Hodgkinson’s 800m win on BBC1 and iPlayer, 8.5 million for Adam Peaty’s silver medal in the 100m breastroke, 8.4 million for the men’s 100m, and 7.9 million for the women’s 200m. In addition, 7.3m watched Katarina Johnson-Thompson win silver in the heptathlon, and 7 million saw the Closing Ceremony.

Meanwhile, on social media BBC Sport acheived 730m clip views across the 17 days. The BBC Sport website had over 28 million unique users and 8.9 million signed in accounts, as well as 62.2 million online requests for highlights clips.

These numbers come as the BBC continues to be the junior rights holder for the Olympics in the UK. Warner Bros. Discovery shows all of the action from the Games through Eurosport, totalling over 3,800 hours, while the BBC is only allowed to show two live streams at the same time - with around 250 hours shown on BBC1 and BBC2. This was the last Games where the BBC had to licence its rights from Warner Bros. Discovery, before it, as part of the EBU, becomes joint rights holder in Europe with the US company - however, this will change little in terms of the amount of content it airs.

Alex Kay-Jelski, director of BBC Sport, said: “The Paris 2024 Olympic Games during this remarkable summer of sport has seen some truly incredible medal moments and we have witnessed a host of new sport stars emerge on an international level. With world-class on-air performances and production, BBC Sport has been there to champion the athletes and to take the audience on a journey across multiple sporting disciplines. It is not an easy job, but these figures across digital, linear, online and audio demonstrates that BBC Sport’s unique multiplatform offer is capable of uniting the nation with the very best of British storytelling.”