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Half of US plans to watch Winter Olympics

February 5, 2014

Just over half of Americans plan to watch or follow the Winter Olympics, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll.

The likely audience for the Olympics is on the older side, with 65 per cent age 50 or over planning to follow the quadrennial event compared with 47 per cent among younger adults, according to the survey.

Asked how they would follow the games, 86 per cent who said they would follow plan to watch events on television, while 17 per cent intend to view online streams. Thirty-five per cent say they will read about the results online and 20 per cent in newspapers.

There’s a broad age gap, with one-third under age 40 planning to follow online streams and just 9 per cent aiming to follow the Olympics in newspapers. Among senior citizens, 37 per cent intend to read about the games in newspapers.

With the competition held in a time zone nine hours from the US Eastern Standard Time, NBC’s prime-time coverage will include replayed events, but few are concerned about spoilers. Sixty-eight per cent of respondents say it won’t matter if they know the results before broadcasts, and just 20 per cent of those planning to watch will actively avoid learning of the results of events they care about prior to the telecasts.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Consumer Behaviour, Research