via press release:
HALF OF ALL AMERICANS, 152 MILLION, WATCH FIRST SEVEN DAYS OF VANCOUVER GAMES
26.6 Million Average Audience For First Seven Nights; Nearly 6 Million More and 27% Higher Than 2006
77 Million Total Viewers Watched Thursday’s Coverage on the Networks of NBCU
24.8 Million Watched NBC on Thursday Night; More Than 5 Million More and 28 percent Higher Than First Thursday in 2006 Winter Games
VANCOUVER - February 19, 2010 - Half of all Americans (152 million) have watched the Vancouver Olympics on the networks of NBC Universal through the first seven days of the Games; six million more than watched the first seven days of the 2006 Winter Games (146 million) according to data available today from The Nielsen Company.
NBCU’s Thursday broadcasts were seen by 77 million total viewers, 14 million more than the first Thursday from the 2006 Games (63 million), on a night that faced original competition including Survivor on CBS and Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice on ABC.
SEVEN-DAY AVERAGE BEST SINCE TABLOID-FUELED LILLEHAMMER GAMES: The 26.6 million average viewers for the first seven nights of the Vancouver Games is the most for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics since the *tabloid-fueled 1994 Lillehammer Games (37.5 million). The 26.6 million is nearly six million more and 27 percent higher than the average viewership of the first seven nights from Torino in 2006 (20.9 million).
*Fueled by the tabloid coverage of the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding scandal.
OLYMPICS DOMINATES PRIMETIME: A night after defeating American Idol by 12 million viewers, Thursday night’s Olympic coverage (8-11:31 p.m.) drew 24.8 million viewers, more than five million more viewers and 28 percent higher than the first Thursday night of the 2006 Winter Games (19.4 million), on a night that faced original competition including Survivor on CBS and Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice on ABC.
· Head-to-head last night (8-9 p.m.), the Olympics more than doubled the viewership of Survivor (24.2 million vs. 11.9 million). On the comparable night at the 2006 Winter Games, Survivor led the Olympics by eight percent (17.0 million to 15.8 million).
· Head-to-head last night (9-10 p.m.) the Olympics nearly tripled the viewership of Grey’s Anatomy (28.4 million vs. 10.2 million). At the 2006 Games, Grey’s Anatomy out-drew the Olympics on three separate nights.
· On this comparable night at the 2006 Winter Games, three programs - Survivor, Dancing with the Stars and CSI (tie) - drew more viewers than the Olympics.
The national household rating of 14.5/24 for Thursday night is an increase of 22 percent over the first Thursday night in Torino in 2006 (11.9/19). The 14.8/24 average household rating to-date is more than two full ratings points and 19 percent higher than 2006 (12.4/20).
NBC OLYMPICS MOBILE PAGE VIEWS: NBC Olympics Mobile app, the No. 1 free sports app in the iTunes store, generated another 4.7 million page views yesterday, and has generated 32.6 million page views since the Games began.
NBCOLYMPICS.COM HAS MORE USERS THAN ENTIRE 2006 WINTER GAMES: In just seven days, NBCOlympics.com has delivered 22.6 million total unique users, according to Omniture, more than nine million more unique users than the entire 17 days of the 2006 Winter Games (13.3 million).
The site has also delivered 18.2 million video streams to date - nearly 15 million more and 452% higher than Torino’s first seven days (3.3 million).
METERED MARKET RATINGS BY TIME ZONE (Seven-Day Average):
Mountain Time Zone 20.1/33
Pacific Time Zone 16.7/30
Central Time Zone 16.7/26
Eastern Time Zone 16.0/25
TOP 25 METERED MARKETS (Seven-Day Average):
1. Denver, 23.3/38
2. Milwaukee, 23.2/36
3. Salt Lake City, 22.9/38
4. Seattle, 21.7/40
5. Minneapolis, 21.5/36
6. St. Louis, 20.2/31
7. Columbus, 19.8/31
8. San Diego, 19.5/33
9. West Palm Beach, 19.3/28
10. Portland, 19.0/35
T11. Cleveland, 18.6/29
T11. Nashville, 18.6/27
13. Boston, 18.2/32
14. Kansas City, 17.9/27
T15. Washington D.C., 17.7/29
T15. Phoenix, 17.7/29
T15. Austin, 17.7/29
T15. Providence, 17.7/30
19. Sacramento, 17.5/31
20. Ft. Myers, 17.2/27
T21. Chicago, 17.1/27
T21. Indianapolis, 17.1/28
T21. Cincinnati, 17.1/26
T21. Oklahoma City, 17.1/25
T21. Tulsa, 17.1/26
T21. Richmond, 17.1/26
TOP 25 METERED MARKETS FOR THURSDAY, FEB. 18:
T1. Denver, 24.1/38
T1. Salt Lake City, 24.1/41
3. Minneapolis, 21.8/37
4. Milwaukee, 20.7/32
T5. Seattle, 20.6/39
T5. St. Louis, 20.6/33
T7. San Diego, 19.5/33
T7. West Palm Beach, 19.5/29
T9. Oklahoma City, 18.8/29
T9. Richmond, 18.8/28
11. Columbus, 18.7/30
12. Providence, 18.0/30
13. Chicago, 17.7/28
T14. Phoenix, 17.6/30
T14. Portland, 17.6/34
16. Hartford, 17.4/28
17. Washington, D.C., 17.3/29
T18. Boston, 17.0/32
T18. Indianapolis, 17.0/30
20. Austin, 16.9/28
T21. Nashville, 16.7/25
T21. Cincinnati, 16.7/27
23. Louisville, 16.5/25
T24. Kansas City, 16.1/25
T24. Tulsa, 16.1/24
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.
I hate when you count it in this way….You could also count all episodes of NCIS and say that over 200 million people watched the show.
Robert isn’t counting this way. NBC is counting that way. Hence the “via press release” tag.
Umm, how on earth could you turn on a television and miss at least a few seconds of it? It’s on your local NBC affiliate for about 23 hours a day.
I made sure I added “Part of” to the post’s version of their headline, usually it (NBC) is a bit more forthcoming about adding in “watched at least six minutes,” but that didn’t happen here. I understand, and share Dario’s annoyance to a degree, but there’s still a lot of good data in the release.
@Dario:
If you look NCIS & NCIS: Los Angeles’ Super Bowl commercial, they say “94 Million people watch NCIS & NCIS: LA”…
Total time I spent watching The Olympics: 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds.
This is definitely good news for Parenthood
One more thing I forgot to add, NBC really ought to thank Lindsey Vonn and Shaun White, Apollo Ohno and Evan Lychasek because those four are really helping NBC in the ratings.
Don’t forget Stephen Colbert—-the amount of news he has drummed up is actually quite spectacular.
This has been the best installment ever for the Winter Games all-around surpassing the 1980, 1994, and 2002 games. Lots of buzz and the growth of sports that used to didn’t get high viewership. The only thing its missing is America’s little darling Sasha Cohen.
The only thing it’s missing is broadcasting competence.
That damn Julia Mancuso is one hot bitch, reminds me of Valerie Bertinelli back in day.
@JNewt: Sasha Cohen is a very big missing part. I think she is absolutely wonderful and super smart. If she made it to the Olympics, the ratings would be 15% even higher and AI would not have won the Tuesday night.
@Roland: I have to agree with you. People loved the innocence and determination to win from Sasha. Sasha was about to be a huge story in these games had she made it because it was supposed to be a comeback year for her. Women’s Figure Skating is very powerful if the right US stars are represented and it would’ve definitely beat Idol next week by a wide margin.
I wasn’t planning to watch any olympic coverage since I really don’t care about winter sports but I wound up watching quite a bit. The weather here was so bad when the games opened, guess I got hooked.
Sasha Cohen would have made no difference in Tuesday’s ratings since the Ladies Figure Skating event didn’t take place on that day.
I love the Winter games but really look forward to NBC’s contract ending and ESPN winning it so it can be broadcast as a sporting event. It really blows living in the same time zone as the games yet having to watch the events parsed out in a time delayed manner by NBC. Thankfully there are EuroSport feeds to watch on the net.
1idPete: a Cable program getting the olympics is very far fetched. Broadcast will get the olympics because it serves the people who are too poor to afford cable. You are being ignorant with your ESPN claim. The Olympics deserve to be broadcast to everyone–not just those who can afford cable.
folks, PLEASE don’t insult other commenters.
Roland, the Olympics will go to the highest bidder whether that seems fair or not. It’s not hard to imagine ESPN being the highest bidder, however it is hard to imagine an ESPN bid that didn’t involve ABC.
So, is it fair to say that the top five metered markets seem to be largely indifferent?
Boris, on a percentage basis you might conclude all markets are largely indifferent. Based on percentages even the best market is only averaging 23%.
It would be nice to see the top 50 markets, and also see the absolute results by market (15% of NY is much bigger than 23% of Milwaukee. But unfortunately, we don’t have that data.
As an aside, the music awards show on Univision Thursday night beat the Olympics in adults 18-49 in the LA market.