TV viewership for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics averaged 56.4% in the capital and its surrounding areas, an audience ratings firm said Monday.
Video Research Ltd. said the preliminary rating for public broadcaster NHKтАЩs live broadcast of the ceremony, held in the spectatorless National Stadium on Friday, in the Kanto region in eastern Japan compared with 61.2% for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony.
With Tokyo under a fourth COVID-19 state of emergency and organizers having decided to ban spectators at venues, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has called on the public to cheer athletes at home on TV.
But attitudes remain mixed in Japan regarding whether the Olympics and Paralympics should be going ahead amid the pandemic, with health experts warning of the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the virus first detected in India.
In a nationwide poll conducted by Kyodo News ahead of the opening ceremony, 71% of respondents said they were looking forward to the games, while 87% were worried the event will trigger a fresh surge in infections.
A string of scandals involving games officials has further sapped enthusiasm for the first Summer Olympics on home ground since 1964.
Meanwhile, NBCтАЩs TV broadcast of the opening ceremony drew 16.7 million viewers, the smallest U.S. TV audience for the event in the past 33 years, according to preliminary data provided by Comcast-owned NBCUniversal on Saturday.
Across all platforms, including NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app, 17 million people watched the ceremony, the company said in an email.
The streaming audience on those platforms grew 76% from the 2018 Pyeongchang opening ceremony and 72% from the 2016 Rio opener, reflecting a change in viewing habits.
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