Still haven't seen the full overnight detail for Saturday night and I may not until Monday morning, but James Hibberd reports some pretty stellar overnight numbers for NBC for the primetime portion of Saturday night.
Saturday's overnight local-market household average was a 16.6 rating (30 share), which is up 12% from Athens in 2004. Now that’s not nearly as great of percentage leap as the Beijing opening ceremony had over Athens (27%), but it still ranks as the highest first-night of summer off-shore Olympic competition since Barcelona in 1992.
I don't feel impaired by the lack of additional data, we can be sure that's better than everything else that was on last night. By way of comparison, the American Idol season finale in May did a 17.7/28 (household rating/share), which is better than the Olympics last night in terms of households viewing, so for now David Archuletta vs. David Cook did a little better than Michael Phelps vs. the world, but for a Saturday night programming that wasn't the NFL, it's an outstanding performance and better than I expected. In my estimation, not merely good, but great.
You can read the rest of Hibberd's post, with links to other Olympics info here.
Saturdays ratings were, I am sure, sparked by the LIVE coverage of the swimmong events, along with Phelps getting his first of a possible 8 gold medals.
BTW, Will we get any ratings for the NBC Daytime coverage and all the cable outlets coverage, on a daily basis?
TVa, I’m sure you’re right about Phelps/Swimming, and NBC is apparently well-poised again on that score for Monday night. I do not think we will see ratings for all day parts for broadcast and cable outlets. I believe we will either see “some” of that or at least some sort of tally after the games are over, but I hope I’m pleasantly surprised and more data is available on an ongoing basis.
TVa, I’m sure you’re right about Phelps/Swimming, and NBC is apparently well-poised again on that score for Monday night. I do not think we will see ratings for all day parts for broadcast and cable outlets. I believe we will either see “some” of that or at least some sort of tally after the games are over, but I hope I’m pleasantly surprised and more data is available on an ongoing basis.
WOW! these Olympics are on record pace to be the most watched in history. Saturday night does have an audience and it needs to be utilized for scripted shows by the networks in the future.
Hot Pocket, I don’t know. It has an audience *if* there is an event. NFL playoff game = event (or even a last game of the season NFL game where the team can run to 18-0). The summer Olympics are a once every 4 year event. You throw a scripted show on Saturday and unless you spend a ton on promotion, you won’t get many viewers. Though I do agree if they put better content on Fridays and Saturdays more people would likely watch, it wouldn’t be NFL and Olympic size audiences.
Hot Pocket, I don’t know. It has an audience *if* there is an event. NFL playoff game = event (or even a last game of the season NFL game where the team can run to 18-0). The summer Olympics are a once every 4 year event. You throw a scripted show on Saturday and unless you spend a ton on promotion, you won’t get many viewers. Though I do agree if they put better content on Fridays and Saturdays more people would likely watch, it wouldn’t be NFL and Olympic size audiences.
Robert, you are so right. It seems like events like the Olympics and NFL can score huge ratings on those days.
These past few days had me thinking since the audience was so large in an era where live TV ratings have gone done year to year b/c of new technology if there would be a new Dallas type show to come along on a night like this.
There have been so many discussions about why Fridays and Saturdays are low hut days when they really aren’t. People tend to do other things in the house on these days. The same amount of people are going out on these days for the past 50 years so that hasn’t changed. If you give people a reason to watch TV they will and this is proven here with the games.
I think were going to see another huge 20-30 million viewer TV show on one of these nights within the next 10-20 years I guarantee it.
Robert, you are so right. It seems like events like the Olympics and NFL can score huge ratings on those days.
These past few days had me thinking since the audience was so large in an era where live TV ratings have gone done year to year b/c of new technology if there would be a new Dallas type show to come along on a night like this.
There have been so many discussions about why Fridays and Saturdays are low hut days when they really aren’t. People tend to do other things in the house on these days. The same amount of people are going out on these days for the past 50 years so that hasn’t changed. If you give people a reason to watch TV they will and this is proven here with the games.
I think were going to see another huge 20-30 million viewer TV show on one of these nights within the next 10-20 years I guarantee it.
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