NBC Says Nearly 220 Million Watched the Olympics

By BILL CARTER

NBC announced on Monday that its coverage of the London Olympics was the most watched entertainment or sporting event ever on American television.

That achievement reflects the total reach of the 17-day event across all the networks of NBCUniversal that carried Olympics programming. NBC said 219.4 million viewers - approaching two-thirds of the population of the country - caught at least some segment of the Games on some channel.

That number surpasses the figure for the Beijing Olympics, which NBC set at 215 million. NBC topped off what had been an above-all-expectations performance with a huge audience, 31 million, for the closing ceremony on Sunday night. That was the largest audience for an Olympics held outside the United States in 36 years. It topped the audience for the Beijing closing by 12 percent.

Over all, NBC's prime-time coverage, which was assailed by some critics, bloggers and social-media users for v arious offenses including not showing events live in the afternoons on NBC (though they could be streamed live on the Internet), had a nightly average of 31.1 million viewers, a figure rarely attained by any current television show. That meant the London Games also had the largest average audience in prime time of any non-United States Olympics since the Games in Montreal in 1976.

NBC's news shows, “Today” and “Nightly News” had their ratings soar during the Olympics, posting enormous margins over their main rival, ABC. In the second week of the Games, “Today” widened its advantage over “Good Morning America” to 1.6 million viewers and sent “GMA' to its lowest numbers in a year.

Despite instigating another online furor with its decision to interrupt coverage of the final night with a preview of a new sitcom, “Animal Practice,” NBC managed to expose that show (for good or ill) to 12.8 million viewers, and scored a 4.1 rating in the 18-to-49-y ear-old audience NBC sells to most advertisers. In isolation, that amounts to a hit rating for that group, though it meant half the audience in that category that had been watching the Olympics tuned out during the comedy.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.