NBC is having a very good week with the Olympics, only losing to Fox’s American Idol once on Tuesday, then coming back on Wednesday with a vengeance. With Thursday’s figure skating duel between Evan Lysaceck and Evgeni Plushenko, the audience return to NBC in droves.
HALF OF ALL AMERICANS, 152 MILLION, WATCH FIRST SEVEN DAYS OF VANCOUVER GAMES26.6 Million Average Audience For First Seven Nights; Nearly 6 Million More and 27% Higher Than 2006
77 Million Total Viewers Watched Thursday’s Coverage on the Networks of NBCU
24.8 Million Watched NBC on Thursday Night; More Than 5 Million More and 28 percent Higher Than First Thursday in 2006 Winter Games
VANCOUVER - February 19, 2010 - Half of all Americans (152 million) have watched the Vancouver Olympics on the networks of NBC Universal through the first seven days of the Games; six million more than watched the first seven days of the 2006 Winter Games (146 million) according to data available today from The Nielsen Company.
NBCU’s Thursday broadcasts were seen by 77 million total viewers, 14 million more than the first Thursday from the 2006 Games (63 million), on a night that faced original competition including Survivor on CBS and Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice on ABC.
SEVEN-DAY AVERAGE BEST SINCE LILLEHAMMER GAMES: The 26.6 million average viewers for the first seven nights of the Vancouver Games is the most for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics since the 1994 Lillehammer Games (37.5 million). The 26.6 million is nearly six million more and 27 percent higher than the average viewership of the first seven nights from Turin in 2006 (20.9 million).
OLYMPICS DOMINATES PRIMETIME: A night after defeating American Idol by 12 million viewers, Thursday night’s Olympic coverage (8-11:31 p.m.) drew 24.8 million viewers, more than five million more viewers and 28 percent higher than the first Thursday night of the 2006 Winter Games (19.4 million), on a night that faced original competition including Survivor on CBS and Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice on ABC.
- Head-to-head last night (8-9 p.m.), the Olympics more than doubled the viewership of Survivor (24.2 million vs. 11.9 million). On the comparable night at the 2006 Winter Games, Survivor led the Olympics by eight percent (17.0 million to 15.8 million).
- Head-to-head last night (9-10 p.m.) the Olympics nearly tripled the viewership of Grey’s Anatomy (28.4 million vs. 10.2 million). At the 2006 Games, Grey’s Anatomy out-drew the Olympics on three separate nights.
- On this comparable night at the 2006 Winter Games, three programs – Survivor, Dancing With the Stars and CSI (tie) – drew more viewers than the Olympics.
The national household rating of 14.5/24 for Thursday night is an increase of 22 percent over the first Thursday night in Turin in 2006 (11.9/19). The 14.8/24 average household rating to-date is more than two full ratings points and 19 percent higher than 2006 (12.4/20).
NBC OLYMPICS MOBILE PAGE VIEWS: NBC Olympics Mobile app, the No. 1 free sports app in the iTunes store, generated another 4.7 million page views yesterday, and has generated 32.6 million page views since the Games began.
NBCOLYMPICS.COM HAS MORE USERS THAN ENTIRE 2006 WINTER GAMES: In just seven days, NBCOlympics.com has delivered 22.6 million total unique users, according to Omniture, more than nine million more unique users than the entire 17 days of the 2006 Winter Games (13.3 million).
The site has also delivered 18.2 million video streams to date - nearly 15 million more and 452% higher than Turin’s first seven days (3.3 million).
METERED MARKET RATINGS BY TIME ZONE (Seven-Day Average):
Mountain Time Zone 20.1/33
Pacific Time Zone 16.7/30
Central Time Zone 16.7/26
Eastern Time Zone 16.0/25
TOP 25 METERED MARKETS (Seven-Day Average):
1. Denver, 23.3/38
2. Milwaukee, 23.2/36
3. Salt Lake City, 22.9/38
4. Seattle, 21.7/40
5. Minneapolis, 21.5/36
6. St. Louis, 20.2/31
7. Columbus, 19.8/31
8. San Diego, 19.5/33
9. West Palm Beach, 19.3/28
10. Portland, 19.0/35
T11. Cleveland, 18.6/29
T11. Nashville, 18.6/27
13. Boston, 18.2/32
14. Kansas City, 17.9/27
T15. Washington D.C., 17.7/29
T15. Phoenix, 17.7/29
T15. Austin, 17.7/29
T15. Providence, 17.7/30
19. Sacramento, 17.5/31
20. Ft. Myers, 17.2/27
T21. Chicago, 17.1/27
T21. Indianapolis, 17.1/28
T21. Cincinnati, 17.1/26
T21. Oklahoma City, 17.1/25
T21. Tulsa, 17.1/26
T21. Richmond, 17.1/26
TOP 25 METERED MARKETS FOR THURSDAY, FEB. 18:
T1. Denver, 24.1/38
T1. Salt Lake City, 24.1/41
3. Minneapolis, 21.8/37
4. Milwaukee, 20.7/32
T5. Seattle, 20.6/39
T5. St. Louis, 20.6/33
T7. San Diego, 19.5/33
T7. West Palm Beach, 19.5/29
T9. Oklahoma City, 18.8/29
T9. Richmond, 18.8/28
11. Columbus, 18.7/30
12. Providence, 18.0/30
13. Chicago, 17.7/28
T14. Phoenix, 17.6/30
T14. Portland, 17.6/34
16. Hartford, 17.4/28
17. Washington, D.C., 17.3/29
T18. Boston, 17.0/32
T18. Indianapolis, 17.0/30
20. Austin, 16.9/28
T21. Nashville, 16.7/25
T21. Cincinnati, 16.7/27
23. Louisville, 16.5/25
T24. Kansas City, 16.1/25
T24. Tulsa, 16.1/24
I notice how NBC cut off its coverage for Nielsen at 11:31 p.m., even though the network didn’t sign off until 12:25 a.m. Interesting.
