The derby’s brief duration - NBC had 7.5 hours of coverage for what’s ultimately two minutes of racing followed by celebratory interviews - means there isn’t much time for in-race dramatics to have much impact on viewership. It’s unclear if any of that depressed viewership, but it was unlikely to have helped. This year’s derby unfolded against the backdrop of several horses being euthanized at Churchill Downs, and five others were scratched before the race including derby favorite Forte.

telecasts after the Academy Awards (18.8 million average for ABC on March 12). The race also placed third among overall 2023 U.S. television’s largest for any sports event since 115 million watched the Super Bowl on Fox in February. While the overall viewership average is down from last year’s 16 million viewers, when 80-1 longshot Rich Strike stunned the racing world with his improbable victory, NBC was still quick to point out that the 2023 Kentucky Derby audience was U.S. The linear TV portion of the Kentucky Derby audience average was 14.4 million viewers, NBC said, while the network’s streaming platforms had an average minute audience of 371,000 viewers - up from last year’s 247,000.ĭuring a controversial week in which seven horses died at Churchill Downs, Mage won by a length with Two Phil's finishing second. BBC America averaged 261,000 (it was 14 million-plus on the BBC in Britain out of 67 million UK residents, per Variety, and another 8.4 million on Sky News). CNN’s average peaked at 1.15 million at 11 a.m.

NBC’s coverage of the coronation, starting at 6 a.m., averaged 1.72 million viewers while CBS averaged 1.58 million and Fox averaged 1.6 million at the same time. The thoroughbred outpaced the monarch in the sport of kings, at least on any single network: An average of 14.8 million people watched the horse race, with viewership peaking at 16.6 million for the actual two minutes of track time during the 7 to 7:15 p.m.

The namesake novel