Broadcasters suffer losses while streaming services thrive during Olympic coverage

Korea's chef de mission to the Paris Olympics Jeong Gang-sun, center, waves the Korean national flag after athletes return home at Incheon International Airport, Tuesday. Yonhap

Korea’s major terrestrial broadcasters are believed to have suffered losses while covering the 2024 Paris Olympics, while domestic streaming services have seen a significant increase in users.

Hana Securities analyst Lee Ki-hoon said in his report released Wednesday that SBS, one of the three major broadcasters, is expected to post at least 10 billion won ($7.35 million) in losses stemming from its coverage of the Olympics in Paris.

“Even though the unexpectedly strong performances of Korean athletes at the Olympics resulted in the high popularity of related content, SBS is assumed to have faced difficulties in pre-selling advertising slots due to the initially low medal expectations,” Lee said.

“Additionally, due to the high production costs of covering the event in Europe, SBS is projected to incur losses of at least 10 billion won as a result of the Olympics.”

The situation is expected to be similar for two other terrestrial broadcasters, KBS and MBC, as viewership for their coverage remained sluggish throughout the 16-day event from July 26 to Aug. 11.

According to data from market tracker Nielsen Korea, the viewership ratings for the opening ceremony were 1.4 percent for KBS, 1 percent for MBC and 0.6 percent for SBS.

The combined 3 percent in viewership is far lower than that of the opening ceremonies of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at 16.5 percent or those of the 2016 London Olympics at 20.8 percent.

Viewership improved as Korean athletes showed solid performance during the Games but failed to match those of previous editions of the spectacle.

Fireworks ignite during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France, Sunday. AP-Yonhap

Each broadcaster reported achieving double-digit viewing figures for several medal events; however, overall Olympic viewership ratings are believed to have remained in the low single digits.

Nielsen Korea data showed MBC achieved the highest average daily viewership rating among the three broadcasters, with 3.7 percent over an unspecified 11-day period. Data for the other two broadcasters was unavailable. On Aug. 7 alone, SBS recorded the highest viewership rating with 5.7 percent, followed by MBC with 5.3 percent and KBS with 3.3 percent.

On the other hand, streaming platforms have achieved a noticeable user influx during the Paris Olympics.

In Korea, the live streaming of the Games was exclusively available on the streaming service Wavve and the streaming platform SOOP, previously AfreecaTV.

Wavve said the number of its paid subscribers increased 2.3 times in July alone. During the men's individual archery gold medal match featuring Korean archer Kim Woo-jin on Aug. 4, the number of concurrent viewers on Wavve reached 7.2 times the average before the Games. During the women's singles badminton gold medal match featuring An Se-young on Aug. 5, Wavve's concurrent viewership was 8.2 times higher than the peak number recorded in June.

SOOP also benefited from the Paris Olympics. According to SOOP, the number of concurrent viewers surpassed 450,000 on Aug. 4, when Kim won gold in the archery final. More than 400,000 viewers also used the platform on July 30, when the men's archery team competed in the final and the mixed table tennis doubles semifinals took place.