Even with the beach volleyball final shown live with hardly any commercial interruptions, Wednesday’s ratings for the Olympics were the second lowest of the games. NBC still finds a way to find a positive saying the overall viewing is still on a pace to break Atlanta’s record.
206 MILLION WATCH BEIJING GAMES ON NBC UNIVERSAL THROUGH 13 DAYS, SURPASSING LILLEHAMMER
NBCOlympics.com Tops 1 Billion Page Views
85% of All U.S. TV Households Have Tuned In
BEIJING –Aug. 21, 2008 –Through just 13 days, NBC Universal's Beijing Olympic coverage has surpassed the 16-day viewership total for the entire Lillehammer Winter Olympics, making it the second most viewed television event in U.S. history. The 206 million viewers are 13 million more than the first 13 days for Athens (193 million) and 5 million more than the Atlanta Games (201 million), which was the most-viewed television event in U.S. history. NBCU's coverage has reached more than 85 percent of all U.S. television homes.
MOST VIEWED EVENTS IN U.S. TV HISTORY:
1. 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, 209 million (17 days)
2. *2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, 206 million (*through 13 days)
3. 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics, 204 million (16 days)
4 . 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, 203 million (17 days)
5. 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, 194 million (17 days)
The Beijing Olympic 13-day average primetime viewership is 29.0 million, 12 percent ahead of Athens in 2004 (26.0 million). NBC's average of a 16.9 rating, 29 share in households is the best through the second Wednesday for a Summer Olympics outside the U.S. since Barcelona in 1992 (17.9/34) and is a seven percent jump from Athens in 2004 (15.8/27).
In primetime, NBC's Beijing Games has won all 79-rated half-hours against its entire network competition.
Wednesday night garnered 67 million total viewers in primetime and 24.8 million average viewers, a two percent gain from the comparable night in Athens (24.3 million). The night earned a 15.2 rating/26 share, just one percent off from Athens' comparable night (15.3/26).
NBCOLYMPICS.COM TOPS 1 BILLION PAGE VIEWS: NBCOlympics.com has surpassed one billion page views and has achieved record success across all metrics:
1.04 billion page views, nearly double the total page views for the 2004 Athens Games and 2006 Turin Games combined (561.1 million)
43.9 million unique users, 74 percent higher than the combined uniques for the entire Athens and Turin Games (25.2 million)
60.8 million video streams, nearly six times the combined total of video streams for the entire Athens and Turin Games (10.8 million)
7.4 million hours of video consumed through 13 days is the equivalent of 850 years of video.
TAMI FOR TUESDAY: The TAMi (Total Audience Measurement Index) measures the 3600 hours of programming during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, including Television (P2+ reach), Online (Unique Users), Mobile (WAP unique users and Mobile VOD unique users) and TV VOD (unique users). Below is the TAMi measurement through Tuesday, Aug. 19:
Tuesday, Aug. 19 95.4 million
TV: 87.6 million, ONLINE: 7.4 million, MOBILE: 399k, TV VOD: 25k
Monday, Aug. 18: 94.4 million
Sunday, Aug. 17: 107.4 million
Saturday, Aug. 16: 108.0 million
Friday, Aug. 15: 95.1 million
Thursday, Aug. 14: 101.6 million
Wednesday, Aug. 13: 101.0 million
Tuesday, Aug. 12: 105.1 million
Monday, Aug. 11: 103.1 million
Sunday, Aug. 10: 113.1 million
Saturday, Aug. 9: 97.8 million
Friday, Aug. 8: 74.6 million
Brian Lowry of Variety says NBC’s 24/7 multiplatform coverage of the Games has been both good and lucky.
Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life Magazine writes the other networks had another lame night against the Olympics. Toni says overall viewing for Beijing is slowly but surely closing in on the Atlanta record.
And TV Week says the Olympics also pulled in great numbers in the 18-49 demographic while killing the other networks.
Just three more days of the Olympics and we can move on to US Open tennis, the MLB pennant races, the start of college football and the kickoff to the NFL season.
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