Olympic sized ratings

CBC's ratings will not be available for some time still, but NBC's US telecast of the 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in Beijing received the highest overnight rating ever for an event staged outside the USA. It earned a 21.5 rating and a 37 share (from 8-11:19 p.m. ET/PT).

(A rating is a percent of the all television households in the USA tuned to a particular show and a share is the percentage of the TV audience watching TV at a particular time that is tuned to a particular program.)

The overnight rating for the Opening Ceremony represented a 19 percent increase over Athens in 2004 and 16 percent higher than Sydney in 2000, according to Nielsen Media Research data.


In the overall viewership averages for Friday, Aug. 8, the 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies scored a whopping 35.31 million viewers and a 10.3 rating/32 share among adults 18-49.


When you look at the total viewers tuned to each network, the dominance of NBC's Olympics coverage becomes apparent :


NBC: 35.31 million,
CBS: 4.02,
CW: 3.77,
ABC: 3.30,
Fox: 2.32


In the key demo (Adults 18-49) NBC likewise dominated its rival US broadcast networks


NBC :10.3 rating/32 share,
CW: 1.2/ 4,
ABC: 1.1/ 4,
CBS: 1.1/ 3,
Fox: 1.0/ 3


The Opening Olympic Ceremonies on NBC beat the four competing networks combined by 21.9 million viewers and 134 percent among adults 18-49!



OPENING CEREMONY OVERNIGHT RATINGS COMPARISON

(for a Summer Olympics held outside USA) :



1) Beijing - 2008 - 21.5/37
2) Sydney - 2000 - 18.5/32
3) Seoul - 1988 - 18.3/33
4) Athens - 2004 - 18.0/30
5) Barcelona - 1992 - 16.5/32

(first score is the rating; second score is the audience share)

The opening Ceremony in Atlanta in 1996 earned 27.2/47.


In terms of local markets, the Olympics telecast performed strongest in the Western cities in the USA, as follows.


TOP 10 METERED MARKETS FOR OPENING CEREMONY:


1) San Diego - 26.5/49
2) West Palm Beach - 25.7/42
3) Sacramento - 24.3/43
4) Denver - 24.2/43
T5) San Francisco - 24.1/47
T5) Baltimore - 24.1/41
7) Indianapolis - 23.9/42
8) Salt Lake City - 23.5/49
9) Nashville - 23.4/37
10) St. Louis - 22.9/42

(first score is the rating, second is the audience share)

NBC is broadcasting its record 11th Olympics, surpassing ABC for the most Olympics broadcast by any network. NBC plans to present 3,600 hours of Beijing Olympic Games coverage, the most ambitious single media project in history featuring the most live coverage (nearly 2,900 live hours in total), across the most platforms, of any Summer Olympics in history.