London Olympics: First Weekend Hits Record High for NBC

Average viewership for Opening Ceremony and Sunday night higher than any night from past three Games

By Tim Baysinger -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/30/2012 3:38:31 PM

NBC averaged 35.8 million viewers for the first three nights of the 2012 London Olympics, the most ever for the first weekend of a Summer Olympics.

That is five million more than the 2008 Beijing Games and 1.4 million more for the 1996 Atlanta Games, the last to be hosted by the U.S. The average viewership for the Opening Ceremony (40.7 million) and Sunday night (36.0 million) is higher than any night from the past three Olympics (Beijing, Athens and Sydney).

Saturday night averaged 28.7 million viewers, the most-watched first night on record, topping Atlanta's by over two million viewers.