The Winter Olympics May Be On The Way To A Viewership Record

NBC has just issued a press release regarding viewership for the first two days of the 2010 Winter Olympics and it’s quite good. In fact, it’s so good NBC is crowing. Take a look.

97 MILLION WATCH FIRST TWO DAYS OF VANCOUVER GAMES

26.2 Million Average Audience For Saturday Night is Higher Than Every Single Night of the Turin Games

Audience for Saturday Night is 13% Higher than the Comparable Turin Saturday Which Featured Figure Skating and Downhill Skiing On First Day of Competition

55 Million Total Viewers Watched Saturday Night’s Coverage on NBC

VANCOUVER -February 14, 2010 - Through Saturday, 97 million people have watched the Vancouver Olympics Winter Games on the networks of NBCU; nine million more than watched the first two days of the Turin Games in 2006 (88 million) and the most since the tabloid-fueled 1994 Lillehammer Games (100 million), according to data released today by Nielsen Media Research.

“It’s simply remarkable for a Saturday night, television’s least-watched night, to surpass the audience total for every one of the 17 nights of the last Winter Olympics without the benefit of figure skating - the single biggest event in a Winter Games - which was the featured event of the first Saturday night in Turin,” said Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Universal Sports and Olympics. 

MORE VIEWERS THAN EVERY NIGHT IN TURIN: The first night of competition on NBC averaged 26.2 million viewers and did not feature figure skating, 13 percent higher than the first Saturday night in Turin (23.2 million), which featured figure skating (pairs short program). The average audience from Saturday night is higher than EVERY SINGLE NIGHT of the Turin Games. This is especially remarkable given that Saturday night traditionally has the smallest audience of any primetime night. 

NOTE: Figure skating begins tonight in primetime with the pairs short program. 
 
NBC’s Saturday night broadcast was seen by 55 million total viewers, six million more than the first night of competition from Turin (49 million).

TWO-DAY AVERAGE BEST SINCE TABLOID-FUELED LILLEHAMMER GAMES: The 30.0 million average viewers for the first two days of the Vancouver Games is the most for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics since the *tabloid-fueled 1994 Lillehammer Games (39.9 million).  The 30.0 million is 33 percent higher than the two-day average viewership from Torino (22.6 million).

*Fueled by the tabloid coverage of the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding scandal.

The national household rating of 14.0/25 for Saturday night is an increase of four percent over Turin in 2006 (13.5/23). The 15.9/28 average household rating to date is up 21 percent from Turin (13.1/22) and the best for a non-U.S. Winter Games since Lillehammer (25.2/38).

The network’s Saturday live afternoon coverage from 2-6 p.m. ET that featured Al Michaels debut as daytime host, returning to the Olympics for the first time in 22 years, and featured speed skating, ski jumping and biathlon drew 13.1 million viewers a gain of 25 percent over the first Saturday afternoon in Turin (10.5 million).  

NBCOLYMPICS.COM UP 350% FROM TURIN: NBC’s Olympics website, NBCOlympics.com, has averaged 4.5 million unique users for the Vancouver Games, 350 percent higher than the first two of the last Winter Games in Turin in 2006 (1.02 million) 

• The site has also delivered 4.3 million video streams to date – 691% more than Turin’s first two days (543K).

NBC OLYMPICS MOBILE APP IS NO. 1 ON ITUNES: NBC Olympics Mobile app, the No. 1 free app in the iTunes store, generated 5.3 million page views yesterday, up from the two million for Opening Ceremony day.

METERED MARKET RATINGS BY TIME ZONE (Two-Day Average):
Mountain Time Zone  19.9/35
Pacific Time Zone  17.8/34
Central Time Zone  17.3/29
Eastern Time Zone  17.2/28

TOP 25 METERED MARKETS FOR SATURDAY, FEB. 13:
1. Milwaukee, 22.2/38
2. Salt Lake City, 21.4/38
3. Minneapolis, 21.3/39
4. Columbus, 20.9/34
5. Seattle, 20.6/40
6. Denver, 20.4/37
7. Cleveland, 19.3/33
8. Portland, 18.6/36
9. St. Louis, 18.4/32
10. Austin, 18.1/32
11. Richmond, 18.0/29
12. Sacramento, 17.9/33
13. Pittsburgh, 17.5/28
14. Norfolk, 17.3/27
15. Nashville, 17.2/27
16. Tulsa, 17.1/27
17. Kansas City, 17.0/28
18. Phoenix, 16.9/30
T19. Boston, 16.6/31
T19. Indianapolis, 16.6/29
T19. Cincinnati, 16.6/28
22. Washington, D.C., 16.5/27
T23. San Diego, 16.2/31
T23. Providence, 16.2/29
25. Baltimore, 16.1/27

NBC is taking s
hots at the Lillehammer Olympics calling it “tabloid-fueled”. This will be the last time you will be seeing that reference. After today, I’m editing it out of the press release.