NBC Off to a Red Hot Start for the 2008 Olympics

It may have been tape delayed. It may have run on the West Coast while some Olympic events were already underway, but apparently that did not matter. You watched the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in record numbers last night.

BEST OPENING CEREMONY OVERNIGHT RATING FOR NON-U.S. OLYMPICS EVER

21.5 Rating and 37 Share is 19% Higher than Athens and 16% Higher than Sydney

NBCOlympics.com’s 70 Million Page Views Friday, 900% Increase From Athens

BEIJING –Aug. 9, 2008 – NBC's coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in Beijing was the best overnight rating ever for non-U.S. Olympic Opening Ceremony earning a 21.5/37 (8-11:19 p.m. ET/PT).  Additionally, NBCOlympics.com saw its most traffic ever on Friday with 70 million page views, 10 times more than the seven million page views on the opening day of the Athens Games.  The overnight rating for the Opening Ceremony was a 19 percent increase over Athens in 2004 and 16 percent higher than Sydney in 2000, according to Nielsen Media Research data released today. 

NON-U.S. OPENING CEREMONY OVERNIGHT RATINGS:
1) Beijing – 2008 - 21.5/37
2) Sydney – 2000 - 18.5/32
3) Seoul – 1988 - 18.3/33
4) Athens – 2004 - 18.0/30
5) Barcelona – 1992 - 16.5/32

• Opening Ceremony in Atlanta in 1996 earned 27.2/47;

TOP 10 METERED MARKETS FOR OPENING CEREMONY:
1) San Diego - 26.5/49
2) West Palm Beach - 25.7/42
3) Sacramento - 24.3/43
4) Denver - 24.2/43
T5) San Francisco - 24.1/47
T5) Baltimore - 24.1/41
7) Indianapolis - 23.9/42
8) Salt Lake City - 23.5/49
9) Nashville - 23.4/37
10) St. Louis - 22.9/42

Dick Ebersol served as executive producer of NBC's Opening Ceremony coverage; David Neal, producer; and Bucky Gunts, director.

NBCOLYMPICS.COM OFF TO RECORD START:
NBCOlympics.com garnered 70 million page views on 8/8/08 an increase of 900 percent and 10 times more than the opening day of the Athens Games in 2004 (7 million).

• The 70 million page views are nearly 50 million more page views than the peak day in Athens (Day 4, 20.6 million).
• NBCOlympics.com’s 4.2 million unique users show an increase of 496% over the unique users for the opening day of the Athens Games in 2004 (705,000).
• Since August 1, 2008, NBCOlympics.com has accumulated more than 127 million page views, nearly half the TOTAL for the entire Athens Games.

NBC Universal, broadcasting its record 11th Olympics and surpassing ABC for the most Olympics broadcast by any network, will present an unprecedented 3,600 hours of Beijing Olympic Games coverage, the most ambitious single media project in history featuring the most live coverage (nearly 2,900 live hours in total), across the most platforms, of any Summer Olympics in history.

We’ll see how this translates to the rest of the games, but I think the buzz on the internet, plus a lot of interest in these Games led to the high ratings for the Opening Ceremonies. Certainly a good start for NBC.