Global Champions, Homegrown Heroes - US Olympic Athletes Spur Local Television Viewing - Stacey Lynn Schulman-TVB

Every two years we watch with pride as our young athletes compete against the world39s best contenders for Olympic glory Perhaps because the essence of Olympic excellence amp8211 strength courage hard work amp8211 so closely echoes the tenets of our national character Americans flock naturally to the media coverage These Olympic Games are no exception NBC39s coverage of the Olympic Summer Games has already attracted a recordsetting audience of its own 32 million average nightly viewers over the first 14 nights It would be a mistake however to focus attention on our national performance alone Just as Team USA is powered by individual young athletes from around the United States so too is the national audience built from hundreds of local communities who watch for the chance to experience their homegrown heroes become global champions In an age when quotcommunitiesquot are growing as facetoface interaction is declining audiences are yearning for opportunities to come together and celebrate common experiences A look at the metered market delivery through the first two weeks of Olympic coverage confirms the strength of local relevance Local markets have been delivering exceptionally strong ratings many times outpacing the national averageTo uncover the power of local relevance TVB mapped TEAM USA39s hometowns across America and aligned them with local television DMAs We then monitored the primetime audience delivery for each market by night Across the 56 Nielsen metered markets all but four boast a hometown athlete in this year39s Olympic games To keep the analysis fair only those markets with athletes competing in primetime coverage were considered a quothometown marketquot for each night39s analysis The appeal of the Olympics is phenomenal with metered markets outpacing regular season audience levels prior nonOlympic 4week average by 500 or more When we add the layer of local relevance however we see even greater gains Hometown markets saw household ratings increase by as much as 960 on some nights of coverage in the first two weeks of the Olympic Games In addition television usage grew by an additional 8 in hometown markets across the first 14 nights peaking at 149 on Thursday August 9thWhich markets are tuning in to support their hometown heroes It39s not necessarily the number of gold medal winners or large market size driving community support The table below ranks the Top 10 local markets according to the increase in household ratings on nights where its hometown athletes are featured versus other nights of Olympic coverageAs American athletes rise to the occasion and the medal platform hometown fans are providing recordbreaking viewing support making Local Broadcast Television an exceptional media platform that drives reach and relevanceStacey Lynn Schulman is Chief Research Officer at TVB where she is responsible for driving insights and media research thoughtleadership about the value of Local Broadcast Television across platforms Stacey can be reached at StaceytvborgRead all Stacey39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Local MattersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Global Champions, Homegrown Heroes - US Olympic Athletes Spur Local Television Viewing - Stacey Lynn Schulman-TVB

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