Another day, another ratings win for NBC’s primetime coverage of the Olympics. It continues to do well, but with Week 2 about to start, that’s when the ratings usually begin to go down as people get tired of watching. It didn’t happen for the 2008 Games in Communist China, but there was some erosion for the last Winter Olympics in Turin. Let’s see how it goes this year.
In any event, here’s your press release from NBC.
162 MILLION, WATCH FIRST NINE DAYS OF VANCOUVER GAMES26.3 Million Average Audience For First Nine Nights; Nearly 6 Million More and 28% Higher Than 2006 Winter Games
77 Million Watched Networks of NBC Universal on Friday; 9 Million More Than Comparable Saturday From The 2006 Winter Games
VANCOUVER - February 21, 2010 - More than half of all Americans (162 million) have watched the Vancouver Olympics on the networks of NBC Universal through the first nine days of the Games; five million more than watched the first nine days of the 2006 Winter Games (157 million), according to data available today from The Nielsen Company.
NBCU’s Friday broadcasts were seen by 77 million total viewers, nine million more and 13 percent higher than the middle Friday from the 2006 Games (68 million).
9-DAY AVERAGE 6 MILLION MORE THAN 2006; BEST SINCE LILLEHAMMER GAMES: The 26.3 million average viewers for the first nine nights of the Vancouver Games is the most for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics since the Lillehammer Games (38.7 million). The 26.3 million is nearly 6 million more and 28 percent higher than the average viewership of the first nine nights from Turin in 2006 (20.6 million).
OLYMPICS DOMINATE PRIMETIME AGAIN: The average viewership of 26.7 million last night is seven million more than and 36 percent above the comparable night of the 2006 Winter Games (19.7 million). This is another dominating performance for the Olympics on a Saturday, traditionally has the smallest audience of any primetime night. The first Saturday of the Vancouver Games had an average audience of 26.6 million.
- Last night, the Olympics more than doubled the combined delivery of the other three major networks (ABC, CBS, Fox combined for 11.5 million) beating the three combined by 131 percent. This comes after dealing American Idol its first defeat in six years on Wednesday, nearly tripling the audience of Grey’s Anatomy on Thursday, and nearly doubling the combined delivery of the other three major networks on Friday.
The national household rating of 14.7/24 for Saturday night is more than three full ratings points and an increase of 30 percent over the comparable Saturday night in Turin in 2006 (11.3/19). The 14.7/24 average household rating to-date is more than two-and-a-half ratings points and 20 percent higher than 2006 (12.2/20).
NBC OLYMPICS MOBILE SURGES: NBC’s Olympics Mobile platforms (WAP site and iTunes App combined) through just nine days have amassed more than 49 million page views, already surpassing the total number of page views for the entire 17-day Beijing Games (34.7 million).
NBCOLYMPICS.COM HAS MORE USERS THAN ENTIRE 2006 WINTER GAMES: In just eight days, NBCOlympics.com has delivered 27.3 million total unique users, according to Omniture, 14 million more unique users and 105 percent higher than the entire 17 days of the 2006 Winter Games (13.3 million).
- NBCOlympics.com has delivered 23.9 million video streams to date – nearly 20 million more and 469% higher than Turin’s first eight days (4.2 million).
METERED MARKET RATINGS BY TIME ZONE (Nine-Day Average):
Mountain Time Zone 19.9/33
Pacific Time Zone 16.4/30
Central Time Zone 16.3/26
Eastern Time Zone 15.8/25
TOP 25 METERED MARKETS (Nine-Day Average):
1. Milwaukee, 23.1/36
2. Denver, 23.0/38
3. Salt Lake City, 22.5/38
4. Seattle, 21.3/39
5. Minneapolis, 21.0/36
6. St. Louis, 19.9/31
7. Columbus, 19.7/31
8. San Diego, 19.2/32
9. Portland, 19.0/35
10. West Palm Beach, 18.9/26
11. Cleveland, 18.4/29
12. Nashville, 18.2/26
13. Kansas City, 18.0/27
14. Boston, 17.8/31
T15. Phoenix, 17.5/29
T15. Providence, 17.5/29
T17. Austin, 17.3/28
T17. Tulsa, 17.3/26
19. Washington, D.C., 17.2/28
T20. Sacramento, 17.1/31
T20. Cincinnati, 17.1/26
T20. Oklahoma City, 17.1/26
T20. Ft. Myers, 17.1/27
24. Richmond, 16.9/26
T25. Chicago, 16.7/27
T25. Indianapolis, 16.7/27
TOP 25 METERED MARKETS FOR SATURDAY, FEB. 20:
1. Milwaukee, 25.3/39
2. Seattle, 21.9/41
3. Denver, 21.4/37
4. Salt Lake City, 20.9/36
5. Portland, 20.0/37
6. Columbus, 19.9/31
7. Kansas City, 19.5/30
8. Cleveland, 19.2/33
9. Tulsa, 19.0/29
10. St. Louis, 18.7/32
11. Minneapolis, 18.3/34
12. San Diego, 18.1/30
T13. Oklahoma City, 17.2/27
T13. Cincinnati, 17.2/28
15. Sacramento, 17.1/29
16. Providence, 17.0/31
17. Tampa, 16.8/28
18. Norfolk, 16.7/26
19. Boston, 16.6/31
T20. Pittsburgh, 16.4/26
T20. Phoenix, 16.4/28
22. Richmond, 16.2/25
T23. San Francisco, 16.1/31
T23. Ft. Myers, 16.1/26
T25. Orlando, 16.0/26
T25. Detroit, 16.0/28
So Milwaukee gets back on top of the ratings heap on Saturday after allowing Denver to surpass it for a few days.
