How did Australians follow the London 2012 Olympic Games? A short report on audience behaviourMARCH 2013

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Contents

| iii

How did Australians follow the London 2012 Olympic Games? 2

Monitoring the Games—TV viewing of London 2012 3

What did Australia watch in 2012? 3

Too much sport is never enough 4

Fewer younger Australians watched the London 2012 on TV 5

Scheduled television coverage still popular 6

Using the best screen 7

Fanning the Olympic flame—Aussies, social media and London 2012 9

Streaming the Games 9

Use of devices to follow the Games 9

Catch-up or recorded TV 12

‘Liking’ the Games 12

Tweeting for gold 12

Conclusion 13

acma | 1

Introduction

In September and October 2012, the Australian Communications and Media Authority

(the ACMA) published three articles examining how Australians followed the London

2012 Olympic Games, held between 27 July and 12 August 2012.

Interest in the Games was high—the first ‘social and mobile Olympics’—as many

commentators noted.

Major televised events, like the Olympics, give media researchers the opportunity to

look at audience behaviour in depth and compare this with previous events.

Past Olympics have attracted a large number of television viewers, and London 2012

was no exception. However, in 2012, many Australians also embraced social, mobile

and online media to follow the Olympics, taking advantage of opportunities that were

not available when the last Games were held in Beijing in 2008.

This paper looks at how Australians followed the London 2012 Olympic Games and

some of the changes that have taken place in audiences and viewing patterns.

2 | acma

How did Australians follow the London 2012 Olympic Games?

The London 2012 Olympic Games have been called the first-ever ‘social and mobile

Olympics’, but how did Australians choose to follow their favourite events and

athletes?

In September and October 2012, the ACMA published a series of short research

articles on how Australian audiences accessed content from the London 2012 Olympic

Games. As the regulator of broadcasting, internet, radiocommunications and

telecommunications, the ACMA keeps informed about trends across media and

communications, including changes in consumer attitudes and behaviour.

Past Olympics have attracted a large number of television viewers, and London 2012

was no exception. The Australian estimated that an average 2.5 million Australians

watched the Games each night on free-to-air and subscription television. With Twitter,

Facebook and smartphones now mainstream, many Australians also embraced social,

mobile and online media to follow the Games, taking advantage of opportunities that

were not available for Beijing 2008.

Questions this research attempted to explore included:

Does a major event, such as London 2012, pull audiences back to more traditional

platforms or encourage people to watch events and keep informed about results

using other channels?

How is social media affecting how audiences follow a major sporting event? What

kinds of media engagement do social networks promote and does social media

supplement or complement traditional TV viewing and media use?

Do broadly popular events such as the London 2012 have the potential to

encourage people to participate online?

The next section focuses on how Australians watched London 2012 on television. The

final section covers online, mobile and social media engagement.

acma | 3

Monitoring the Games—TV viewing of London 2012

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) estimated that the audience for the

London 2012 across more than 200 countries was 4.8 billion people.1 As the IOC

noted, when the Olympic Games were last held in London in 1948, it was the first time

that television coverage had been broadcast into people’s homes, with approximately

500,000 viewers—mostly within a 100-kilometre radius of the city—watching the 64

hours of coverage.

The first Games held in the southern hemisphere—in Melbourne in 1956—coincided

with the introduction of public television broadcasts in Australia.2 These Games were

also the first where the organising committee asked the international broadcast

community to pay rights fee for access to the television feed. Major European and

North American broadcasters refused to pay and as a result, the Games were

effectively only televised in Australia.3

At the time, it was estimated that there were only 5,000 television sets in Australia.4

There have been considerable changes since then.

What did Australia watch in 2012? More than 13.5 million Australians watched Channel Nine’s coverage of London 2012

Olympic Games, although the 18 to 34 age group had fewer viewers follow the Games

on television compared with other groups.

Nine Network’s coverage of London 2012 reached over 900,000 more viewers than

the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and more than a million more than the 2004 Athens

Games.5 Nevertheless, the most popular London 2012 broadcast (London Live, day

two, early evening) reached a smaller combined audience (just over three million) than

the top Australian sporting events televised live in 2012. For example, the 2012

Australian Football League Grand Final had a combined audience of 4.19 million, and

the third State of Origin rugby league match between Queensland and New South

Wales reached a combined audience of just over four million.6

Despite a lower-than-expected medal haul in the pool, swimming was the most

popular event with Australian Olympic audiences, featuring in the top five most-

watched programs on Nine. The opening ceremony also attracted a large number of

viewers—an average audience of 1.8 million over four hours in the five city

metropolitan markets.

1 www.olympic.org/news/a-window-for-the-world-london-2012-olympic-games-prepare-to-set-broadcasting-

milestone/169896 2 As Australian quarantine laws were too severe to allow the entry of foreign horses, the equestrian events

were actually held separately in Stockholm in June. 3 www.obs.es/olympicbroadcastinghistory.html

4 http://corporate.olympics.com.au/files/dmfile/1956_Games_RoleMedia.pdf

5 http://if.com.au/2012/08/15/article/Nines-Olympics-broadcast-reaches-13-57-million-

viewers/ZOGBIPEMZW.html 6 Figures include the five capital cities and four aggregated markets excluding Tasmania and WA:

www.thinktv.com.au/media/Stats_&_Graphs/Top_Programs/Top_Programs.pdf.

4 | acma

Table 1 Top London 2012 programs on Channel Nine in the five metropolitan city markets—average

audience

Rank Program What was on? Average audience

(total individuals)

1 London Live day two early

evening 6.30 pm–8.30 pm

AEST

Swimming heats, men’s hockey 2,142,000

2 London Live day one early

evening 6.30 pm–8.30 pm

AEST

Swimming heats, men’s cycling, road

race, rowing

1,970,000

3 London Live day two evening

8.30 pm–10.30 pm AEST

Swimming heats, rowing, women’s

cycling, road race, Boomers

basketball

1,924,000

4 London Live day three early

evening 6.30 pm–8.30 pm

AEST

Swimming heats, rowing, women’s

hockey

1,828,000

5 London Live day one evening

8.30 pm–10.30 pm AEST

Swimming heats, men’s cycling, road

race

1,807,000

7 London Live opening ceremony

5.30 am–10 am AEST

Opening ceremony 1,801,000

Source: OzTAM

Note: Audiences for simulcast programming on Gem was attributed to Nine.

Too much sport is never enough Even after the swimming finished, Australian audiences continued to watch Nine’s

coverage of London 2012 in large numbers. The average daily audiences for its prime-

time coverage remained relatively consistent into the second week of competition.

Traditionally, Australian audience numbers have tended to decline after the first week.

acma | 5

Figure 1 Average daily audiences for Channel Nine’s prime-time coverage of London 2012

Source: OzTAM.Notes: Early evening programs broadcast from 6.30 pm–8.30 pm AEST time. Evening programs were broadcast from

8.30 pm–10.30 pm AEST time.

Across the 16 days of competition, an average of 1,628,750 viewers watched Nine’s

early evening coverage in the five city metropolitan markets. An average of 1,596,375

watched the evening session. Foxtel’s simultaneous programming across eight

dedicated channels averaged 538,170 viewers during prime time.7 This means the

average audience for London 2012 across free-to-air and subscription television in the

five city metropolitan markets was around 2,150,733 between 6.30 pm and 10.30 pm.

Fewer younger Australians watched the London 2012 on TV Fewer Australians aged 18 to 34 tuned in to watch Nine’s coverage of the London

2012 than those aged 35 and over. The coverage of the opening ceremony is a good

example of these differences.

7 www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/london-games/broadcasters-claim-bumper-olympic-games-

audiences/story-e6frgdg6-1226451041920

0

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

Day

1

Day

2

Day

3

Day

4

Day

5

Day

6

Day

7

Day

8

Day

9

Day

10

Day

11

Day

12

Day

13

Day

14

Day

15

Day

16

Ave

rag

e au

die

nce

Early evening

Evening

6 | acma

Figure 2 The opening ceremony on Channel Nine—average daily reach percentage, by age

Source: OzTAM.

This behaviour was repeated across other Games programming.

A multinational online survey conducted prior to the London 2012 by Research Now

found that 16 to 34-year-olds were the audience most likely to engage with the Games

via news websites and social media, and the least likely to watch the events on

television. The survey included 7,200 respondents across six countries including

Australia (1,200), the UK, US, Canada, France and Germany.8

Scheduled television coverage still popular About 217 million people in the US watched NBC Universal’s broadcasts of London

2012. In the UK, the BBC’s coverage reached 51.9 million viewers.9

In Australia, over 13.5 million viewers watched Nine Network’s coverage of the

Games. Foxtel’s eight-channel coverage attracted more than one million Australians

on some nights.10

Overall, 81 per cent of the Australian population watched scheduled coverage of

London 2012, compared with 80 per cent in the US and 89 per cent in the UK (see

Figure 3).

8 www.prweb.com/releases/2012/7/prweb9713349.htm

9 www.digitalspy.com.au/media/news/a399096/london-2012-bbc-enjoys-record-online-and-tv-audiences.html

10 www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/london-games/broadcasters-claim-bumper-olympic-games-

audiences/story-e6frgdg6-1226451041920

31%

21%

34%

37%

41%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Total individuals 18–34 35–49 50–64 65+

Ave

rag

e d

aily

rea

ch

acma | 7

Figure 3 Proportion of population who watched scheduled TV coverage of London 2012 and/or

Paralympic Games at least once a week

Source: Ofcom Communications market report 2012: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr12/icmr/ICMR-2012.pdf

Sample sizes: UK = 1,065, USA = 1,010, Australia = 1,007.

According to Ofcom research, the most common reasons given for watching the

London 2012 on free-to-air television were convenience or quality. A higher proportion

of people watched the Games on television than on any other medium.11

Using the best screen While there has been a major growth in the adoption of smartphones and tablets in the

last five years, and PCs and laptops can be found in many homes, the television

screen remains a dominant feature in almost all Australian households.

In the four years between the Beijing and London Olympic Games, over nine million

flat-panel digital television sets were sold in Australia. During the same period, the

average retail price paid fell from over $1,600 to under $800. By the time the London

Games started on 27 July 2012, most Australian homes had a high-definition, flat-

panel digital television set to watch the coverage on.

11

Ofcom: Communications market report 2012

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr12/icmr/ICMR-2012.pdf

Sample sizes: UK = 1,065, USA = 1,010, Australia = 1,007.

81

89

80

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Australia UK US

Per

cen

tag

e

8 | acma

Figure 4 Retail sales of high-definition, flat-panel digital television sets, 2008–12

Source: GfK Retail and Technology, retail sales data for high-definition LCD and plasma television sets with digital tuner,

September 2008–July 2012.

As indicated by other research, audiences tend to watch major events on the best

screen available The London Olympics were no exception, although audience

behaviour has changed in other ways, as the next section explores.

0

100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

Sep

-08

Dec

-08

Mar

-09

Jun-

09

Sep

-09

Dec

-09

Mar

-10

Jun-

10

Sep

-10

Dec

-10

Mar

-11

Jun-

11

Sep

-11

Dec

-11

Mar

-12

Jun-

12

acma | 9

Fanning the Olympic flame—Aussies, social media and London 2012

How did social media and online viewing change the way Australians followed the

Games?

The answer to this question is both ‘not much’—as more people watched traditional

broadcast coverage than for previous Games—and ‘in every way’—with many more

people using social media to follow and comment on these Games than previous

Olympics.

Streaming the Games The time difference meant most Australians watched events held earlier in the day (UK

time) on TV rather than streaming this content. Nevertheless, The Financial Review

reported that more than 135,000 people downloaded the Foxtel app. Many of these

were not Foxtel subscribers and would have only been able to access medal tallies,

results and Foxtel’s programming schedule.

By the end of the first week of the Games, there were more than 190,000 video

streams per day using the app. Of these, only about 15,500 of these were catch up—

meaning quite a few late nights for Australian viewers. Nine also launched an app

(Jump-In) to encourage social media engagement.

Short-form video footage delivered online was heavily utilised given the time zone

difference. Nine’s dedicated Olympic website on the Ninemsn Wide World of Sports

portal averaged over 350,000 stream starts per day, with 6,159,179 total cumulative

stream views across the 17 days of competition. The largest volume of streams in a

single day—754,890—was generated the day after Australia won three gold medals

(Sally Pearson (track), Anna Meares (cycling) and Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen

(men’s 49er class sailing) on Wednesday 8 August.

Nine’s audience research during the Games suggested people watched on different

devices at different times. Hence, there were three ‘prime times’. While television

screens continued to predominate in the early evening, late evening (after 10.30 pm)

saw mobile phones and tablets being utilised at similar levels to the television. Mobile

phones were heavily utilised during the morning commute and lunchtime, and PCs and

laptops were most used at lunchtime.

Device mobility allowed additional Olympic consumption. In-home consumption via

television sets averaged 3h:11m per day, in-home via any device was 3h:50m per day,

and within and out-of-home on any device was 6h:38m, adding an additional 3h:27m

to viewing content beyond the television screen.

Use of devices to follow the Games Tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices were important ways to follow, share

and stream Olympics content, with Google reporting a 10-fold increase in mobile

searches globally. Australia was similar to other countries. Here, 45 per cent of all

Olympics-related searches were done on mobiles. This figure was 47 per cent in the

US and 46 per cent in the UK.

10 | acma

Much of this was multi-screen behaviour.

As Google observed, there is an increase in the use of mobile searches ‘ … in many

multi-screen events (such as the Super Bowl, the Oscars, and Eurovision Song

Contest) but the Olympics represents an even more pronounced trend and one [that is

happening] at a global level’.12

Engagement increased for those who used more than one screen. Nine’s research

found that 48 per cent of those people who viewed the Olympics on television in the

preceding 24-hour period used a second screen at the same time. Just over half of

these were using the second screen for tasks unrelated to what they were watching.

However, the remainder were accessing Games content as they viewed. These ‘cross-

screeners’ spent twice as much time following the Games as those who watched on

one screen.13

Typically, the PC and mobile devices were used for short-form content, while larger

screens for were used when the best screen mattered. Twenty-two per cent of the

population was estimated by Nine to have dual-screened related content. Television

and PCs (or tablets or other mobile devices) can be seen as both a companion and

competitor.

Tablets and mobile devices can enhance the television broadcast, allowing viewers to

access additional content, statistics and further information on what they are watching.

However, these devices can also detract and compete against television consumption,

particularly for highlights, and non-live, non-exclusive footage.

In a survey conducted before the Olympics by the UK media regulator (Ofcom), one in

five Britons said they intended to follow the Games online, whether through a PC (12

per cent), tablet (six per cent), or mobile phone (eight per cent). Young people were

more likely to say they were planning to follow the Games online (32 per cent of 16

to24-year-olds).

What people said they would do to follow the Games, and what they did do were

different. More than half (52 per cent) of the UK audience used a PC at least once a

week to follow the Games (52 per cent in the US and 49 per cent in Australia) and 29

per cent of Britons used a mobile phone (21 per cent in the US and 18 per cent in

Australia). Twenty-one per cent followed the Games using a tablet (19 per cent in the

US and 16 per cent in Australia).

12

http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/going-for-mobile-gold-10x-increase-in.html 13

Nine’s London 2012 Olympic Games audience research [unpublished].

acma | 11

Figure 5 Ofcom—Most common means of accessing Olympics/Paralympics coverage

Source: Ofcom: Communications market report 2012 http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr12/icmr/ICMR-2012.pdf

Sample sizes: UK = 1,065, USA = 1,010, Australia = 1,007.

While scheduled television was the most common way of following the 2012 London

Olympics, research during the Games14

found 90 per cent of the UK population

followed the Games using a combination of TV, PC, mobile, tablet and social media:

21.9 million viewers accessed additional streams during the Games using

interactive TV and online

8.8 million people watched on-demand footage across TV, PC and mobile

platforms

7.2 million used a mobile phone or tablet to watch or read about the Games

2.7 million UK residents posted about the Games on social media sites while

watching live coverage.

BBC Sport Online recorded an average of 9.5 million global browsers and 7.1 million

UK browsers. In total, BBC Sport Online saw 55 million global browsers and 37 million

UK browsers over the two weeks of the Games.

There were 106 million requests for BBC Olympic video content across all of its online

platforms, compared with the 32 million for the Beijing Games.

As reported in All Things D, NBC research also suggests that the Olympics changed

consumer behaviour in the US. The London 2012 Olympics were the first time the

majority of website and app users live-streamed Games content on a tablet,

smartphone or online.15

14

http://advanced-television.com/index.php/2012/08/22/research-olympics-intro-new-tv-behaviour/ 15

http://allthingsd.com/20120802/nbc-says-live-online-tape-delayed-olympics-are-a-ginormous-success/

74

2

2

6

9

3

2

63

1

2

11

13

2

1

67

3

2

11

7

4

2

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Scheduled TV

Radio

Mobile phone

Catch up/recorded TV

Through a PC

Newspaper/magazine

Tablet computer

Percentage

UK

USA

Australia

12 | acma

According to a US survey conducted by Insight Express16

:

among tablet users, 76 per cent live-streamed on a tablet for the first time

86 per cent live-streamed on a smartphone for the first time

even the web saw 36 per cent of website users live-stream online for the first time.

As indicated earlier, there were more than 190,000 video streams per day in Australia

using the Foxtel app, with only about 15,500 of these catch-up viewing.

Catch-up or recorded TV Ofcom research after the London 2012 indicated that 44 per cent of Australian

respondents watched recorded or catch-up television coverage of the Games. In the

UK, 41 per cent of respondents watched catch-up or recovered coverage, and 47 per

cent in the US.17

For 11 per cent of Australian respondents, catch-up or recorded television was the

most common means of accessing coverage of the Olympics and Paralympics, the

same figure as in the US.

‘Liking’ the Games The London 2012 attracted nine times more Facebook users than the 2008 Beijing

Olympics and four times more than the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Of course,

social media has also become a larger part of people’s lives since those two events.

Throughout London 2012, there were more than 116 million posts and comments on

Facebook about the Games. Athletes collectively added 12.2 million likes to their

pages between the opening and closing ceremonies.

Tweeting for gold Over the 16 days, more than 150 million tweets about the Olympics were posted

globally. Tweets hit 80,000 per minute when Usain Bolt won the gold medal in the 200-

metre athletics final.18

Generally, Australian sentiment expressed on Twitter about the Games was very

upbeat—65 per cent positive and 35 per cent negative. However, one of the major

themes was the absence of live-streamed content, and—as in the US—opinion about

public television coverage of the Games was far less complimentary.19

16

www.bizreview.com.au/p/business/marketing_media/nine_games_numbers_hurt_by_social_

5Inynj5Z1JE1xAmLpU1FAN 16

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr12/icmr/ICMR-2012.pdf

18

http://blog.twitter.com/2012/08/olympic-and-twitter-records.html 19

http://pinterest.com/derektweets/olympics/

acma | 13

Conclusion

In the US and UK, research showed a large proportion of the population followed

London 2012 using a combination of TV, PC, mobile, tablet and social media.

Australians may not have streamed as much content as viewers in the US or UK, but

Australians did watch the Games on television in larger-than-ever numbers, as well as

following the Games on PCs, tablets and mobiles. At the same time, Australians also

engaged on social media.

Australians were very much a part of the significant and ongoing global change in how

people follow major events like the Olympics, with greater multi-screen viewing—for

convenience, and to connect with others on social media. However, most viewing is

likely to continue to be on the best (and biggest) screen available, remembering too

that the proportion of television equipment connected to the internet is growing.

Consequently, television can become a mainstream choice for catch-up viewing that

was previously the domain of the PC.

These changes in viewing behaviour are likely to be more evident for the Soichi Winter

Olympics in 2014 and the next Summer Olympics in Rio in 2016.

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