Viewership for the 2008 Beijing Olympics is up all across the NBC family of networks.
MSNBC has seen the biggest increase in viewership compared to 2004. The network is averaging 649,000 viewers for its daily twelve hours of coverage, up 27% from 2004. Ratings are up even more dramatically compared to the network’s usual news/political programming. The 649,000 viewers marks a 133% increase from over what the network aired in the comparable timeslots last year, and an Olympics special on Monday evening was up 252% compared to programming in the comparable timeslot on the previous Monday.
The good ratings for the Olympics helped MSNBC’s prime time programming. The network says “83% of the people who watched MSNBC’s two-hour daily Olympic wrap-up continued into [Hardball with Chris Matthews].” Additionally, ratings for MSNBC’s prime time slate on Monday were up 30% compared to the previous week.
News sibling CNBC has averaged 638,000 viewers for its three hours of coverage, up 6% from 2004. Like MSNBC, CNBC is drawing much larger audiences for the Olympics than for its usual programming. The 638,000 viewers is a 259% increase over programming in the comparable timeslots last year. On Monday, the network drew 805,000 viewers for its coverage, up 206% from 263,000 viewers for the comparable timeslots on the previous Monday.
USA Network has drawn the largest average audience of the NBC cable networks. The network has averaged 1.04 million viewers for its coverage, up 23% from ’04. Meanwhile, Oxygen, carrying the Olympics for the first time, has averaged 713,000 viewers for its daily two hours of coverage.
