The broadcaster providing America's coverage of the Olympics has been accused of failing viewers - with complaints about excessive advert breaks, sexism from presenters, poor commentary and patronising attitudes.

Fox News even asked: Is NBC's Olympics coverage the worst ever?

NBC paid $1.2 billion to broadcast the Olympics. The network has maintained a stranglehold on the coverage, forbidding any other broadcaster to even use the Olympic theme tune.

But viewers in the United States were unimpressed - with "NBC Olympics terrible" coming up as a suggested Google search term.

Although previous Olympics broadcasts have also faced criticism, NBC executives could be questioning if their strategy is working; ratings for the summer sports spectacular are the worst in years.

According to Deadline, opening weekend numbers showed the Rio games are way behind 2012, 2008, and even 1992 in total prime time viewers.