Interest in Paris games boosted by loosened social media rules, star power, says CBC

TORONTO — CBC says an uptick in early Olympics viewership among Canadians is likely thanks to a stronger social media presence by athletes, a manageable time zone difference, more homegrown star power and the romantic allure of Paris.

The public broadcaster touted a rise in average daily hours streamed for the first four days of Paris 2024 compared to past Games, noting increases of 70 per cent over Tokyo 2020 and 75 per cent over Beijing 2022.

CBC says linear viewership stayed about the same with roughly 21 million Canadians tuning into CBC/Radio-Canada’s Paris 2024 coverage on either an English or French TV network.

The executive director of CBC Sports & Olympics pegged strong viewership numbers to the "spectacle of Paris" and Canada having "one of its strongest overall summer teams" in years, as well as the International Olympic Committee loosening restrictions around athletes' use of social media.

"Athletes are freer to post social media content from venues and inside the (Olympic) Village than they've ever been before," Chris Wilson said Wednesday on a call from Paris, pointing to swimmer Penny Oleksiak and gymnast Ellie Black as stars who have been active on TikTok.

"I honestly think that that helps us, too, because it raises awareness and tells their individual stories and maybe the viewers care a little more about a specific athlete they found on TikTok and hopefully they search them out and then come watch them compete on one of our platforms."

Wilson added that Paris' central European time zone has been "amazing" for Canadian viewership. CBC said daytime TV audiences have jumped 29 per cent over Tokyo.

Sports business expert Michael Naraine said the six-hour time difference has made it easier for Canadians to tune in than Asia's roughly 12-hour gap. He noted the Canadian men’s basketball team’s game against Australia took place at 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, which was ideal for Toronto commuters watching on their phones.

CBC says engagement has been high on its social media channels, with 400,000 video plays on Instagram and half a million plays on TikTok for Summer Macintosh's silver medal win in 400-metre freestyle swimming on Saturday.

Wilson said CBC learned in Beijing that it posted "too many" highlights from the Games on its social platforms, making them "so accessible there that you didn't have to go anywhere else."

This time around, the broadcaster is leaning into telling athletes' stories on its social accounts so that viewers are more inclined to tune into CBC's linear and streaming channels for live content.

But with Olympics coverage airing on CBC and its partner networks Sportsnet, TSN and RDS, as well as streaming on CBC Gem and the CBC Sports Paris 2024 app, some viewers found it confusing to locate the events they're interested in.

Toronto's Cal Nuclar, who paused to watch Olympic events on a giant screen in Toronto's underground PATH system on Tuesday, said she had trouble finding live coverage of skateboarding events and resorted to watching online clips posted after-the-fact by skateboarding accounts.

"I had to look for essentially what I was interested in as opposed to just coming in here and it’s like, there. That would have been really cool to see (skateboarding) on the screen,” Nuclar said.

Sports media professor Laurel Walzak of Toronto Metropolitan University said fans are now consuming Olympics content in different ways, pointing to an increase in highlights being circulated on X, Instagram and TikTok.

"I'm a huge advocate of watching the Olympics but at the same time, I found myself last night saying, 'It would be easier if I could just watch the highlights quickly on TikTok and Instagram because I was waiting for them on the TSN app, which seemed to be taking forever,'" said Walzak.

Naraine said there’s a “symbiotic relationship” between traditional broadcast and social media, as digital content creators share short clips of the Games that drive more viewers to the mainstream networks.

He pointed to clips of Snoop Dogg providing commentary as NBC’s special correspondent and a photo of U.S. gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, a.k.a. "Clark Kent," sleeping on the sidelines while wearing glasses as examples of Olympics content being circulated online.

“You have these influencers on TikTok making videos about Snoop Dogg talking about dressage, or Clark Kent sleeping all day on the U.S. men’s gymnastics team and then getting a perfect score on the pommel horse,” said the professor of sports management and marketing at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.

“That really resonates with younger demos, and then as it goes viral, it captures a bit of the older demo and then boom, it makes people want to watch the live content, potentially on their television sets.”

Wilson said the CBC and the IOC are "strict about our rights" and how their footage is used.

"But in the end, my personal feeling is that attention on the Games is good, and people having buzz about the Olympics for the next two weeks, regardless of where it comes from, is largely good."

— With files from Alex Goudge in Toronto.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2024.

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press