Like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan before him, Michael Phelps giveth and taketh away.
After Phelps helped drive NBC’s Olympics ratings into the stratosphere last week, his absence figures to lead to lower ratings for the second week of the games. Exhibit A is the performance of NBC last night, which was stellar, but far less stellar than a week ago.
NBC averaged a 14.9/25 overnight rating and 26.1 million viewers in prime time (7-11 PM) last night, down 19% and 20% from an 18.3/31 and 32.6 million viewers in prime time last Sunday.
Prime time viewership peaked from 10-10:30 PM with 30.3 million viewers. Keep in mind prime time viewership does not take into account anything past 11 PM.
