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 11:50:00 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