Opening Ceremony Scores for NBC, NBCOlympics.com
Broadcast-network ratings up 19% from 2004 Athens Games, 16% from 2000 Sydney Games; Web-site traffic 10 times more than Athens.
By B&C Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 8/9/2008 7:50:00 AM
The 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony from Beijing Friday scored for both NBC and NBCOlympics.com.
The network earned the best overnight rating ever for a non-U.S. Olympic Opening Ceremony, posting a 21.5 rating/37 household share, according to Nielsen Media Research.
And NBCOlympics.com set its traffic record with 70 million page views, 10 times more than the 7 million page views from the opening day of the Athens Games.
NBC said its overnight rating Friday was up 19% from the 2004 Athens Games and 16% from the 2000 Sydney Games.
The network added that NBCOlympics.com has totaled more than 127 million page views, reaching nearly one-half the total for the entire Athens Games.
By market, according to Nielsen, the top 10 metered markets in the U.S. were:
1) San Diego: 26.5/49
2) West Palm Beach, Fla.: 25.7/42
3) Sacramento, Calif.: 24.3/43
4) Denver: 24.2/43
5) San Francisco: 24.1/47
5) Baltimore: 24.1/41
7) Indianapolis: 23.9/42
8) Salt Lake City: 23.5/49
9) Nashville, Tenn.: 23.4/37
10) St. Louis: 22.9/42
