With the 2024 Olympic Games having come to a close last month, the Paralympics will continue to highlight amazing feats of athleticism in Paris. Some audience numbers are already being reported, such as for the Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony, which attracted a total of more than four million Canadians, or 10% of the population, on August 28.

According to Numeris, the Paralympics Opening Ceremony on CBC garnered a 2+ average minute audience of 216,000, a 188% increase from Tokyo’s Opening Ceremony in 2020. On CBC Gem, the ceremony saw an increase in views of over 1,120% compared to the Tokyo event.

Looking back at the last Paralympics Games in Tokyo, in total, 9.6 million or 26% of Canadians tuned into CBC/Radio-Canada’s coverage on either an English or French TV network at some point during the Games. Viewers watched over 242,000 hours of Paralympic Games content during Tokyo 2020 on CBC streaming platforms.

While it’s too soon to know how many viewers this year’s Paralympics will reach, during the 17 days of the Olympics last month, seven in 10 Canadians (27 million) tuned into CBC/Radio-Canada’s broadcast coverage, including record-breaking audiences viewing via digital platforms. The broadcast of the Opening Ceremony attracted 13.3 million Canadians across English and French TV networks, with average viewership on CBC up 33% compared to the Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony and a 36% increase compared to Beijing 2022.

Digital audiences consumed a total of 24.3 million video hours of Paris Olympics 2024 content on CBC/Radio-Canada digital and streaming platforms, a 170% increase over Tokyo 2020 and 121% over Beijing 2022. Time spent streaming Olympic content on CBC Gem increased 307% from Tokyo 2020 and 245% from Beijing 2022 with connected TV viewing accounted for about 65% of the total time spent streaming Paris 2024 content on CBC Gem.