Beach Volleyball And NBC Ratings -- August 14, 2016

My wife is absolutely tired of all the beach volleyball on NBC's coverage of the 2016 Rio Olympics.

She asked why?

One word: ratings.

The Wall Street Journal six hours ago:  NBC’s Ratings for Rio Olympics Fall Behind London.

Thanks to Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles, the U.S. is on pace to take home the most gold medals at the 2016 Summer Olympics. When it comes to television ratings, however, NBC may have to settle for a bronze.

Although the Rio Games are dominating everything else on television, the performance is significantly below the 2012 Summer Games held in London, according to Nielsen. Through Saturday, Comcast Corp. ’s NBC is averaging 27.9 million for the first nine nights, down about 15.5% from the London Olympics, which finished with an average of 33 million viewers. The Games are also off from the 34.2 million viewers the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing averaged.

So far, NBC isn’t delivering the audience it promised advertisers who spent more than $1.2 billion for commercials during the 17-day event. Of particular concern is a roughly 30% drop among viewers age 18-34, a demographic advertisers pay a premium to reach.

Men don't watch the summer Olympics.

If anyone watches swimming and gymnastics, it's women.

So, what does NBC do? Televises late-night bikini-clad women to counter telenovelas.