London 2012 Most Watched Games Ever
Television viewing figures for the London 2012 Olympic Games have broken all previous records, reaching a maximum potential global reach of 4.8 billion across more countries than ever – according to media reports.
Insidethegames also reports that more than 50 million people have watched the Games at some point – representing nearly 90% of the population.
In an interview with the website, the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) marketing services director, Timo Lumme, said: ‘The London Games will be the biggest in terms of the amount of broadcast coverage made available to fans around the world.’
‘If you take all our broadcast partners and you add up all the hours they put out, that number for Beijing was 61,000 hours. For London it is likely to be over 100,000 hours.’
London 2012 also marks the first time that the digital side will exceed the traditional television coverage in the UK.
In the host nation, 20 million people watched the men’s 100 metres – the second highest Olympic audience in the UK of all time, after Torvill and Dean’s final free dance routine in Sarajevo in 1984 –with the Opening Ceremony also peaking at 26.9m.
