WBD boasts audience growth for Paris 2024 Olympics

Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed major audience growth for its Paris 2024 Olympics coverage compared to the last Summer Games, Tokyo 2020.

Eurosport 1 and 2 doubled the UK audience levels they had for Tokyo 2020, while Discovery+ quadrupled its number of minutes viewed compared to the last Summer Games. Eurosport had a combined audience share growth of 113%. Warner Bros. Discovery showed all of the action from the Games through Eurosport, totalling over 3,800 hours, in the UK, sharing with the BBC, which aired around 250 hours on BBC1 and BBC2 and reported a linear reach of 36.1 million.

This UK performance was mirrored across Europe, perhaps assisted by the local time zone and the draw of seeing fans in the stadium again post-pandemic. Average linear television audiences for Paris 2024 were double Tokyo 2020, plus there was a cumulative reach of 215 million across the continent, 23% more than Tokyo 2020, and seven billion minutes streamed - six times more than Tokyo 2020.

Sunday 4 August, which saw the men’s 100m final, men’s tennis final, the final day of swimming and the women’s cycling road race, had a record 600 million minutes viewed, and four times as many unique streaming viewers on Warner Bros. Discovery platforms, including Max and discovery+, throughout the Games compared to the last summer Olympics.

Meanwhile, new paid streaming subscribers exceeded those for the entire Tokyo 2020 after just four days of competition in Paris, and over the entire tournament there were 77% more than Tokyo 2020. Saturday 27 July saw Warner Bros. Discovery’s highest number of new paid streaming subscribers ever in a single day in Europe (Max, discovery+ or previously HBO Max).

There were also over 4.5 billion video views of Warner Bros. Discovery Olympics posts on social platforms, almost ten times more than Tokyo 2020 and more than four times greater than Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 and Tokyo 2020 combined.

JB Perrette, CEO and president, global streaming and games, Warner Bros. Discovery, said: “Paris 2024 has exceeded all expectations for fans and audiences, and for Max and Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming business. We’ve added millions of new paying subscribers, and engaged millions of viewers daily on streaming who have watched billions of minutes of content during the Games. Our streaming growth momentum is only gaining strength, and we’ve still got almost half the global addressable market to go. Congratulations and thank you to our great partners at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee for an epic Olympic Games.”

Andrew Georgiou, president and managing director, Warner Bros. Discovery U.K & Ireland and WBD Sports Europe, said: “Paris 2024 has again demonstrated the value of bringing premium sport and entertainment together to drive audience and engagement at scale. We’ve maximised this opportunity at these Games, delivering world-class production featuring outstanding on-screen experts and local country storytelling that has again proven to be a winning combination. Max has proven to be a game-changer for sports viewing with an enhanced product experience and new interactive features which encouraged more subscribers to come on platform and stay engaged for longer.”