As the athletes take to the ski slopes and ice rinks to compete in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the eagerly awaited games have been a TV smash already showing in particular the massive advance in streaming since the last event in 2018.
According to research from Conviva, the 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony recorded a 349% increase in viewing time as compared with the same event in 2018.
The study noted that with so many viewing options available, viewer expectations for a good experience streaming have never been higher, particularly for marquee live events. It noted that despite slightly longer start times and a significant increase in buffering, streaming viewers were treated to 4% fewer start failures and 0.2% higher picture quality on the day of the Opening Ceremony as compared with an average Friday. That said, plays were up 9% and concurrency up 6%.
The study observed that while ceremonies in previous years stretched to four hours with extended pomp and circumstance, the brevity of this year’s Opening Ceremony condensed viewership in 2022. Almost three-quarters (71%) of viewership was captured in the middle two hours of the Opening Ceremony.
In another key change since 2018, the study discovered that tablets accounted for a 28% share of viewing during the Opening Ceremony. Only weeks days ago Conviva released data showing that tablets only had 5% of viewing time of global streaming time in Q4 2021. Connected TV devices, such as Roku, Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV, tied the top spot and desktops came in third with 17%. Smart TVs with 14%, mobile phones with 12%, and gaming consoles with 1% rounded out the rest of the devices. 55% of viewers preferred watching the opening ceremony on Apple iPads.
In addition to showing the streaming surge over the last four years, the research also made clear just how massive social is in video. It found that social engagement was up 370% for official national Olympics accounts from over 120 different countries compared with the average for the previous six weeks. Twitter led all social platforms in volume of content posted accounting for 37% share, while Instagram delivered the most engaged audience with 66% of all engagements for Olympic committee accounts in the week leading up to the Winter Olympics.