NBCU's Best From Vancouver: 87 Million Watch Winter Olympics On Sunday
Miller's Skiing Gold, American's Hockey Triumph Over Canada On MSNBC Draw Large Audience
Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 2/22/2010 7:35:46 PM
Boosted by coverage of Bode Miller's gold medal win in the Super G and figure skating on the Peacock and the U.S. triumph over Canada in hockey on MSNBC, the networks of NBC Universal tallied 87 million total viewers on Feb. 21, the most for its coverage thus far from the 2010 Winter Olympics.
NBCU's total for its Vancouver coverage was 16 million more and 22% higher than the 72 million for the middle Sunday from the 2006 Winter Games from Torino, Italy in 2006, according to Nielsen data.
The primetime coverage on NBC and MSNBC that included figure skating's original dance and alpine skiing's men's super combined on NBC and the USA-Canada hockey game on MSNBC scored 69 million total viewers, the most for a comparable Sunday night since the 79 million CBS drew in 1994 with the tabloid-fueled Games from Lillehammer, Norway.
MSNBC's presentation of the American's 5-3 upset of the Canadians in hockey netted 8.22 million viewers, the news network's second-biggest audience since its election night coverage on Nov. 2008 carried 8.23 million.
All told, 167 million Americans have watched some part of NBCU's coverage from Vancouver through the first 10 days, 3 million more than at the same stage of the 2006 Games.
In primetime on Feb. 21, NBC posted a national household rating of 13.2/21 share, 14% amelioration from 11.6/18 for the comparable night in Torino, according to Nielsen. That translated into average viewership of 23.3 million, 21% above the 19.2 million from Torino on the middle Sunday night.
Over the first 10 nights, NBC averaged a 14.5/24, up 20% from Torino's 12.1/19. From an audience perspective, the Peacock has pulled in 26 million watchers on average, the most for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics since Lillehammer's 39.4 million and a 27% jump over the 20.4 million from the 2006 Games.
NBC officials said the 26 million primetime average was 25% above the 20.8 combined delivery for Fox, CBS and ABC, making the Vancouver Games the most dominant Winter Olympics over broadcast competition on record, dating back to ABC's coverage of the Calgary Games in 1988.
The 2010 Games surpassed their counterpart from Salt Lake City in 2002, when NBC averaged 29.6 million through the first 10 nights, versus 24.1 million for CBS, Fox and ABC.