With just one more night to go, ratings and viewership are still up double-digits for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Coverage of the Winter Games drew an 11.7/21 rating and 20.6 million viewers on NBC Saturday night, up 21% in ratings and 25% in viewership from the comparable night in ’06 (Turin; 9.7/17, 20.6 mil), but down 26% and 24%, respectively, from the comparable night in ’02 (Salt Lake City; 15.7/27, 27.1 mil).
Versus the comparable night of the 1998 Nagano Olympics, Saturday’s rating was down 3% from a 12.0/22.
Seattle led all markets on Saturday night, with a 17.1/31. Following were Salt Lake City (16.9/30), Ft. Myers, FL (16.7/25), Tulsa (16.5/26) and Milwaukee (16.0/28).
Entering Sunday’s Closing Ceremony, evening coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics averaged a 13.9/23 rating and 24.5 million viewers on NBC. The 13.9 rating is up 13% from ’06 (12.3/20), but down 26% from ’02 (19.0/31) and down 16% from ’98 (16.5/27).
NBC guaranteed advertisers a 14.0 average rating for primetime coverage of the Olympics. This is the first time since the Olympics began that the ratings have dipped below the 14.0 guarantee.
Meanwhile, the 24.5 million viewers marks a 19% increase from ’06. NBC has averaged more viewers in primetime during the Olympics than CBS, ABC and FOX combined (22.2 mil).
