Olympics delivers TV streaming record for Seven

Channel 7’s broadcast of the Rio ceremony averaged 2.25 million viewers nationally, the lowest-rating start to an Olympics since the OzTam system began in 2001, while Channel 9’s broadcast of the 2012 London opening ceremony was watched by 2.41 million nationally.

Going back further, Seven’s coverage of the 2008 Beijing opening averaged 2.83 million, while Sydney’s 2000 opening ceremony drew 6.5 million under the old Nielsen ratings system.

Seven’s broadcasters faced criticism for their comments during the parade of athletes for being poorly researched, with viewers citing comments made as the Iraq team entered the stadium as evidence.

“Iraq has competed in every Olympics since 1980 despite several Iraq-related wars” and “to the UAE, famous for so many things including those really tall buildings and all those camels that run fast” were some insights offered to viewers.

Seven has also been criticised for the performance of 7plus, which offers 43 dedicated Olympics channels.

For the 2016 Rio Games, Seven used a dedicated Olympic Games App which offered live streams of its linear television channels for free, with further access to events it was not broadcasting for a $20 fee. In 2016, the app was plagued with problems, with users struggling to get it to work, with others reporting it regularly froze and crashed on them.

For Tokyo, Seven chose to use its 7plus catch-up and on-demand viewing app in an effort to boost its database of logged-in users after making sign-in mandatory a few weeks before the commencement of the games.

However, similar issues of the experience being glitchy, difficult to navigate and streams dropping out have been reported by some viewers on social media. Viewers have also complained of streams being heavily interrupted by ads.

Seven’s head of network sport Lewis Martin rejected criticism of the company’s broadcast.

“Australians are watching our detailed and highly innovative coverage of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 in massive numbers,” he said. “With 45 channels across Seven and 7plus, this is the most comprehensive coverage of any sporting event ever in Australia, all free to everyone.

“The numbers tell the real story of how people are responding: 2.7 million viewers on TV for the Opening Ceremony, 2.47 million on TV last night, more than 170 million minutes streamed on 7plus yesterday. The Games are an unqualified success after just a few days, with lots more great moments and great audience numbers to come.”