The Winter Olympics continue to perform well for NBC.
Primetime coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics drew a 14.2/22 rating and 25.2 million viewers on Monday night, up 11% in ratings and 19% in viewership from the comparable night of the 2006 Turin Olympics (12.8/19, 21.1 mil), but down 28% and 20%, respectively, from the comparable night of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics (19.6/30, 31.5 mil).
Versus the comparable night of the 1998 Nagano Olympics on CBS, Monday’s telecast was down 3% from a 14.8/23.
Salt Lake City was the top market for Monday’s action, with a 23.3/38. Following behind were Milwaukee (23.1/35), Denver (22.6/36) and Nashville (21.0/39).
Through four nights, primetime coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics is averaging a 15.1/25 rating and 27.9 million viewers on NBC, up 15% and 25%, respectively, from the first four nights of the 2006 games (13.1/21, 22.4 mil), and the most-viewers through this point of a non-U.S. Olympics since 1994 (Lillehammer, 37.4 mil, CBS).
To put these numbers in perspective, primetime coverage of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics averaged a 17.1/30 rating through the first four nights.
