Mediacorp scores over 50 advertisers during Olympics, meWATCH sees gains

Mediacorp scored a victory during the recent 2020 Tokyo Olympics, with more than 50 advertisers coming on board across the Mediacorp Olympics Network. This included Channel 5, meWATCH and carriage deals with Singtel and StarHub. Viewers also jumped at the chance to watch free Olympic content on meWATCH, with Mediacorp reporting a quarter-million new user accounts created during the games. 

Mediacorp created 14 dedicated channels on meWATCH offering coverage of the games, including a specially curated channel focusing on Team Singapore events. "With an enhanced understanding of their preferences and user behaviour, we look forward to engaging and helping our users to discover and enjoy a range of local content available on meWATCH," the spokesperson added. Meanwhile, one in two people residing in Singapore also watched the games across the Mediacorp Olympics Network between 21 July to 8 August. According to Mediacorp's spokesperson, the broadcaster began tracking its numbers two days before the games kicked off on 23 July. Mediacorp did not comment on MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's queries about advertiser ad spend, viewership numbers, new user demographics for meWATCH and how it plans to continue engaging them moving forward.

Online streaming of the games seemed to have gelled well with viewers, as YouTube and NBC's streaming service Peacock also saw gains from the recent Olympics. YouTube said in a blog post that viewers watched over 200 million hours of content from the games, including historic Olympic Games. That number is seven times the amount of hours of Olympic Games content watched on YouTube during Rio 2016.

Games content was also viewed more than 190 million times per day during Tokyo 2020, five times more than the average daily views of the games' content on YouTube during Rio 2016. In just two weeks, YouTube said the Olympic YouTube channel grew from six million subscribers to 7.9 million subscribers. The statistics were taken from 21 July to 8 August 2021 and 3 August to 21 August 2016.

Meanwhile, Peacock reportedly saw viewers stream three billion minutes of Olympics coverage by 3 August across NBCOlympics.com, the NBC Sports app and on the streaming service itself, CNN said. However, there was a 45% dip in TV audience for Tokyo 2020 compared to Rio 2016. Primetime viewership reportedly fared worse dipping 51%.

Photo courtesy: Mediacorp

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