BBC breaks streaming record with Olympics coverage

The haul of 14 gold medals is actually GB’s lowest return since Athens 2004

(BBC/Sam Riley)

BBC Sport’s coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics was streamed online 218m times which is more than double the number of streams recorded during the Tokyo Games three years ago.

Keely Hodgkinson’s gold medal in the women’s 800-metre final, which was the only athletics gold, was the most watched event with 9.1m viewers on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Other highlights in the coverage include 8.5m viewers tuning in to watch Adam Peaty take silver in the men’s 100-metre breaststroke final and 7.3m viewers watching Katarina Johnson-Thompson secure her first Olympic medal with silver in the heptathlon.

Across the 19 days of competition, 36.1m viewers watched 15 minutes or more of the Paris Olympics on BBC TV - equivalent to 59% of the UK population.

BBC TV also enjoyed consistently high viewing figures, with a peak audience of over six million viewers on 14 separate days.

Alex Kay-Jelski, director of BBC Sport, said the broadcaster “has been there to champion the athletes” and also to “take the audience on a journey across multiple sporting disciplines”.

He added: “It is not an easy job, but these figures across digital, linear, online and audio demonstrates that BBC Sport’s unique multi-platform offer is capable of uniting the nation with the very best of British storytelling.”

Team GB finished the 2024 Olympics with 65 medals, beating their total from Tokyo by one.

The total matches the team’s medal haul from London 2012 and is the joint-third-highest for Team GB at a single Games behind Rio 2016 (67 medals) and London 1908 (146) but they did win eight fewer golds than they did in Tokyo and 15 less than in 2012.

The haul of 14 gold medals is actually GB’s lowest return since Athens 2004, so once the reflection starts will Paris 2024 be deemed a success or a backward step?