Through Four Days, You’re Watching The 2010 Winter Olympics

Again, I stress that the Olympics have yet to encounter American Idol and it will tonight, but against the Daytona 500, The Amazing Race and Extreme Makeover on Sunday and 24 on Monday, the Olympics have held its own. I think a lot of that has to do with some live coverage, but certainly not the downhill which was absolutely butchered on Monday. I’ll have more on that later. But here’s what NBC is saying about the viewership through the first four days.

129 MILLION WATCH OPENING FOUR DAYS OF VANCOUVER GAMES

27.9 Million Average Audience For First Four Nights; More Than 5 Million More and 25% Higher Than 2006 Winter Games

75 Million Total Viewers Watched Monday’s Coverage on the Networks of NBCU

25.4 Million Watched NBC on Monday Night; More Than 4 Million More and 20 percent Higher Than First Monday in 2006 Winter Games

VANCOUVER - February 16, 2010 - Through the first four days, 129 million people have watched the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games on the networks of NBCU; four million more than watched the first four days of the 2006 Winter Games (125 million) according to data available today from Nielsen Media Research.

NBCU’s Monday broadcasts were seen by 75 million total viewers, seven million more than the first Monday from the 2006 Games (68 million).

FIRST FOUR-DAY AVERAGE BEST SINCE LILLEHAMMER GAMES: The 27.9 million average viewers for the first four nights of the Vancouver Games is the most for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics since the1994 Lillehammer Games (37.4 million). The 27.9 million is more than five million more and 25 percent higher than the average viewership of the first four nights from Turin 2006 (22.4 million).

OLYMPICS REMAIN STRONG VS. ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING: Monday night’s coverage (8-11:16 p.m.) drew 25.2 million viewers, more than 4 million more viewers and 19 percent higher than the first Monday night in the 2006 Winter Games (21.1 million), on a night that drew significant competition including original episodes of The Bachelor on ABC and 24 on Fox.

• The 25.2 million viewers on Monday night was more than double the viewership of the Bachelor on ABC (11.7 million) and nearly three times as many viewers as 24 on Fox (8.5 million). 

The national household rating of 14.2/22 for Monday night is nearly a full rating point and a half higher and an increase of 11 percent over the first Monday night in Turin in 2006 (12.8/19). The 15.1/25 average household rating to-date is two full ratings points and 15 percent higher than 2006 (13.1/21).

NBC OLYMPICS MOBILE APP IS NO. 1 SPORTS APP ON ITUNES: NBC Olympics Mobile app, the No. 1 free sports app in the iTunes store, generated 5.1 million page views yesterday, and has generated 18.1 million page views since the Games began.

NBCOLYMPICS.COM UP 200% FROM 2006: NBC’s Olympics website, NBCOlympics.com, has averaged 4.2 million unique users for the Vancouver Games, 250 percent higher than the opening weekend of the last Winter Games in 2006 (1.4 million). 

• The site has also delivered 8.1 million video streams to date – 350% more than Turin’s first four days (1.8 million).
• In just four days, NBCOlympics.com has delivered 13.6 million total unique users, surpassing the total number of unique users for the entire 17 days of the 2006 Winter Games (13.3 million).

METERED MARKET RATINGS BY TIME ZONE (Four-Day Average):Mountain Time Zone 19.7/33
Pacific Time Zone  17.1/31
Central Time Zone  16.8/27
Eastern Time Zone  16.3/26

TOP 25 METERED MARKETS (Four-Day Average):1. Milwaukee, 23.7/38
2. Denver, 22.6/38
3. Salt Lake City, 22.1/38
4. Seattle, 21.9/40
5. Minneapolis, 21.4/37
6. Columbus, 20.8/33
7. St. Louis, 20.3/32
T8. Portland, 19.5/36
T8. Cleveland, 19.5/31
10. West Palm Beach, 19.4/29
11. Nashville, 19.1/28
12. San Diego, 19.0/33
13. Boston, 18.4/32
T14. Sacramento, 18.2/33
T14. Kansas City, 18.2/28
T16. Providence, 17.8/30
T16. Austin, 17.8/29
T16. Ft. Myers, 17.8/28
T19. Phoenix, 17.7/29
T19. Tulsa, 17.7/27
21. Washington, D.C., 17.5/28
22. Norfolk, 17.4/26
23. Indianapolis, 17.3/28
T24. San Francisco, 17.2/33
T24. Detroit, 17.2/28
T24. Cincinnati, 17.2/26

TOP 25 METERED MARKETS FOR MONDAY, FEB. 15:
1. Salt Lake City, 23.3/38
2. Milwaukee, 23.1/35
3. Denver, 22.6/36
4. Nashville, 21.0/29
5. San Diego, 20.4/33
6. Columbus, 20.0/30
7. Minneapolis, 19.5/32
8. Seattle, 19.3/35
9. St. Louis, 19.1/28
10. Austin, 18.6/29
11. Phoenix, 18.2/28
12. West Palm Beach, 18.0/27
T13. Portland, 17.7/33
T13. Kansas City, 17.7/25
T15.Washington, D.C., 17.3/28
T15. Cincinnati, 17.3/25
17. Boston, 17.1/29
18. Cleveland, 17.0/27
19. Sacramento, 16.8/31
20. Tulsa, 16.7/25
21. Chicago, 16.4/25
22. Indianapolis, 16.1/25
23. Ft. Myers, 16.0/25
24. Oklahoma City, 15.8/22
T25. San Francisco, 15.7/30
T25. Tampa, 15.7/26
T25. Albuquerque, 15.7/24

Again, the top rated time zones are the Mountain and Pacific zones which are delayed and the top rated city was Salt Lake City which again, is in a delay. I guess despite the delays out west, people are watching.