The 32.6 million is slightly different (and lower) than what we reported from the overnights because the coverage ran until midnight and what we saw in the overnight report was only for the primetime portion through 11pm.
via NBC press release:
MOST-WATCHED OPENING CEREMONY EVER FOR NON-U.S. WINTER OLYMPICS
67.5 Million Viewers Watched Opening Ceremony on NBC; 17 Million More than Torino and Nearly 6 Million More Than Tabloid-Fueled Lillehammer Games in ‘94
32.6 Million Average Audience is 47% Higher than Torino
VANCOUVER -February 13, 2010 - In the half-century of televised Olympics, NBC's coverage of the Opening Ceremony from Vancouver was the MOST WATCHED EVER for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics with 67.5 million total viewers, 17 million more than Torino in 2006 (50.2 million) and six million more than the tabloid-fueled 1994 Lillehammer Games (61.7 million) which stood for 16 years as the most-watched Opening Ceremony for a non-U.S. Games.
The Opening Ceremony on NBC averaged 32.6 million viewers, more than 10 million more and 47 percent higher than Torino (22.2 million) and earned a 17.3/30 national rating for an increase of 35 percent over Torino in 2006 (12.8/21).
The 32.6 million average viewers is the most for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in 16 years - just below the 33.8 million for the tabloid-fueled Lillehammer Games in 1994. The 17.3/30 national household rating is also the best for a non-U.S. Winter Games since Lillehammer.
The Washington Post said that “the Winter Games got off to a splendiferous start with the Opening Ceremony - with images that rivaled that of ‘Avatar.’ -- All of it was rendered splendid by NBC’s HD cameras and enhanced by discreet commentary from the anchors.”
NON-U.S. WINTER GAMES OPENING CEREMONY TOTAL AUDIENCE:
1. VANCOUVER - 2010 - 67.5 Million
2. *Lillehammer - 1994 - 62.0 million
3. Nagano - 1998 - 52.4 million
4. Torino - 2006 - 50.2 million
5. Albertville - 1992 - 46.7 million
*Fueled by the tabloid coverage of the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding scandal.
NBCOLYMPICS.COM UP 469% FROM TORINO: NBC’s Olympics website, NBCOlympics.com, registered 4.8 million unique users for Day 1 of the Vancouver Games, 469 percent higher than the Day 1 of the last Winter Games in Torino in 2006 (861k)
· The site also delivered 1.9 million video streams - 836% more than Torino’s first day (201K).
NBC OLYMPICS MOBILE APP IS NO. 1 ON ITUNES: NBC Olympics Mobile app, the No. 1 free app in the iTunes store, generated more two million page views yesterday.
METERED MARKET RATINGS BY TIME ZONE:
Mountain Time Zone 21.2/36
Pacific Time Zone 19.8/36
Eastern Time Zone 18.9/31
Central Time Zone 18.6/30
TOP 20 METERED MARKETS FOR OPENING CEREMONY:
1. Seattle, 25.9/47
2. Milwaukee, 25.8/43
3. Denver, 25.4/44
4. St. Louis, 23.7/40
5. West Palm Beach, 23.3/35
6. Cleveland, 23.1/38
7. Salt Lake City, 22.3/39
8. Columbus, 21.8/37
9. Ft. Myers, 21.4/ 34
10. Detroit, 21.1/34
11. Portland, 21.1/39
12. Providence, 21.0/36
T13. Richmond, 20.9/33
T13. Baltimore, 20.9/32
15. Sacramento, 20.6/38
16. San Francisco, 20.3/39
T17. Boston, 20.2/36
T17. Indianapolis, 20.2/34
T17. Nashville, 20.2/30
T20. Chicago, 20.1/33
T20. Buffalo, 20.1/33
NBC Universal, broadcasting its record 12th Olympics the most Olympics broadcast by any network, will present more than 835 hours of Vancouver Olympic Winter Games coverage - representing the most total hours ever for a Winter Olympics, more than the last two Winter Olympics combined, and the most live hours ever for a Winter Games. The Vancouver Games are the first Winter Olympics to be presented entirely in high definition.
Dick Ebersol served as executive producer of NBC's Opening Ceremony coverage; David Neal, producer; and Bucky Gunts, director.
GO NBC! Hope they recoup some of that 250 million!!!
For those that don’t understand why the Olympics are tape-delayed for the Mountain and Pacific time zones, please look above at which two time zones have the top overall ratings. Until that changes, don’t expect the tape delay to end.
Ryan, yep — though I think it’s less of an issue with the opening ceremonies than events, but NBC had such good luck with delaying west coast by 3 hours for the Beijing games that I think you can count on things being tape delayed forever (or at least as long as NBC has the rights to the games).
how did salt lake do in ’02?
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/02/13/tv-ratings-vancounver-olympics-opening-ceremonies-average-34-5-million-viewers/41924#comment-210556
Salt Lake #s in the comment linked
Not bad for a long and dull opening ceremony. Of course with such a friendly time zone and location, you’d expect them to draw much higher ratings than Torino. Plus I think the Olympics got a bump after the Beijing Games. Before Beijing the Olympics was on a downhill slide ratings wise, both before and after a home game bounce from Salt Lake.
The Salt Lake opening got a 25.5/42 rating, with 45.6M viewers, about 30% higher in both ratings and viewers.
I’ve run the research depts for both KING-TV Seattle (during Athens and Torino) and KUSA-Denver (during Sydney and Salt Lake), and I can tell you that regardless of competition or ceremony, Summer or Winter, these two markets – along with many other Western markets – always place among the top markets for Olympics ratings, regardless of tape delay. Agreed that if someone like ESPN/ABC picks it up, they may just go round-the-clock live on the ESPN family of networks and do a recap “best-of” show every night on ABC. If NBC continues as rightsholder however, I would expect the tape delays to continue – after all, if it ain’t broke…
Could someone tell me what NBC aired in the East Cost between 8pm and 9pm. At what time did the ceremony started ? Is it 9pm ?
Yobb, coverage of the opening ceremonies began at 8pm on NBC.
The Ceremony started at 6pm in Vancouver, is it right ?
So, 6pm in Vancouver = 9pm in New York no ?
The Ceremony didn’t end at 11pm in East Coast, but 12pm ?
I know it’s tape-delayed in West Coast so the 3-hour Ceremony could air between 8pm and 11pm.
Yobb, the coverage of the opening ceremonies began at 8pm — I’m not sure what was official in Vancouver, but it was 5pm there when NBC began broadcasting the coverage at 8pm in NYC. The coverage did end at midnight though.
In my East coast market, the NBC affiliate picked up network coverage of the ‘Winter Olympics’ at 7:30 pm. Most of the first half-hour dealt with the tragic death of that young luger from Georgia, and that first half-hour was anchored mostly by Mr. Brian Williams and Mr. Tom Brokaw.
At 8 pm, the network began the formal “Opening Ceremonies” build-up to the actual ceremonies.
As the first half-hour was outside of primetime, I don’t think the 7:30-8:00 pm segment rolls up into the primetime average for last night. I’ve noticed that NBC has a number of weeknights during the ‘Winter Olympics’ where it plans to start broadcasting at 7:30 pm.
Ryan says:
February 13, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I’ve run the research depts for both KING-TV Seattle
###
Ryan, do you know if KING-TV has any plans to do new episodes of their great sketch comedy series ‘Almost Live’. I used to watch that series back in the ’90s, and some of its episodes were right up there with ‘Saturday Night Live’ in terms of witty, provocative humour?
The OC was the most watched TV program in Canadian history (though since the way ratings are measured has changed over the years, this is a bit misleading). There was an average of 13.3 million viewers for the ceremony, and 23 million people (67% of the population), tuned in at some point. In a sports context, this is more than double the number of people that watched the Grey Cup or Super Bowl this year.
Of course, if Canada makes it to the gold medal hockey game (especially against the US or Russia), I wouldn’t expect this record to last.
http://www.ctvolympics.ca/news-centre/newsid=40407.html?cid=rsstsn
Congrats Vancouver and NBC/CTV!! All the haters who thought this would fail… LMAO!
In NYC coverage started at 7:30 pm, but the opening ceremony began at 9:00 pm, not 8:00 pm as some have mentioned above.
@Giuseppe
Did anyone predict it would fail. I think the fact that it’s in NA this year helps it a lot.
I thought the ceremony was good and great to see The Great One lighting the flame.
Lillehammer is the biggest winter Olympics Game Ever!
Feb.7-13,1994
33.8 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Saturday, 8 p.m.
45.9 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Sunday, 8 p.m.
31.3 Million viewers 60 Minutes CBS, Sunday, 7 p.m
41.0 Million viewers Home Improvement ABC, Wednesday, 9 p.m.
35.0 Million viewers Seinfeld NBC, Thursday, 9 p.m.
Feb. 14-20
32.4 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Monday, 8 p.m.
40.0 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Tuesday, 8 p.m.
32.9 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Wednesday, 8 p.m
39.6 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Thursday, 8 p.m.
43.6 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Friday, 8 p.m.
40.8 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Saturday, 7 p.m.
45.6 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Sunday, 8 p.m.
29.8 60 Minutes CBS, Sunday, 7 p.m.
Feb. 21-27 Week
41.6 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Monday, 8 p.m
36.4 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Tuesday, 8 p.m.
78.8 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS Wednesday, 8 p.m.
35.5 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Thursday, 8 p.m
73.5 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Friday, 8 p.m.
35.7 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Saturday, 7 p.m.
34.5 Million viewers Winter Olympics CBS, Sunday, 8 p.m.
32.7 Million viewers 60 Minutes CBS, Sunday, 7 p.m.
Ew.com (Entertainment weekly archive The Ratings)