Four hours worth of tape-delayed opening ceremony set a record (from 8p-midnight) with a 21.5/37 (household rating/share) in the preliminary Nielsen overnight ratings report.
Update: in terms of “record ratings”, the record only applies to Olympic opening ceremonies where the Olympics were not held in the USA. See much more detail on the numbers, including top local markets here.
From our friend James Hibberd:
NBC has been chided for delaying broadcast of the ceremony until primetime while most nations aired the event live. Yet holding off may have actually aided the show in ways not anticipated by the network. With gushing critic reviews and lavish images saturating the media Friday, many viewers likely tuned in to see if the ceremony could possibly live up to the hype.
I confess to watching most of it myself. And while the parade of nations ran a little long (made a bit easier via slight time-shifting with the DVR) the opening itself was spectacular. 2008 Tai Chi masters in precision is pretty incredible to behold. I loved the scale of the production and how well it was pulled off. Extremely impressive!
Hibberd notes that the ratings of the opening ceremonies aren’t necessarily a barometer of what the ratings for the events themselves will be (for more info going back to the 1968 summer Olympiad click here), but either way we’re sure NBC is pleased.
I found some of NBC’s promotion for the upcoming fall season amusing – especially as it was promoting stuff for the new, upcoming fall season and talking about it in terms of “new” and “fall season”. Wait, we thought you didn’t have a new fall season and were in “year round programming mode”! They may use new language for craptastic summer programming with the TV journos, but apparently NBC doesn’t think its viewers are as stupid as most of the press it talks to. Given that NBC paid an reported $894 million for the US rights to these summer games, we knew it would use it to promote its shows. NBC also reports it has lined up more than a billion dollars worth of advertising across the whole event.
All the carping about how the significant tape delay of the opening ceremonies in the US sent the Internet crowd watching video by telling them where to find it on the Internet even if they had to install a proxy server on their computer to fake foreign countries into thinking they weren’t actually from the United States of America…all of the people who claim Internet viewing is already eating the broadcast network’s shorts (I’m looking at you, silly digerati) please.shut.up.now. KTHXBAI.
Check out the rest of James Hibberd’s post.
Worst olympics ever. NBC is deliberately faking viewer numbers so it can mask how badly it sucks.
NBC shud hav shon this on the web. I had to saw it via Canada CBS web.
George W, the reflection off your shiny tinfoil hat is blinding me. Ethan Cole, in order to watch via CBC's website, you would have had to run a proxy server on your computer. For some reason I really don't see you as even having the skills…
Great start, Terrific opening ceremony. I watched it live and would have watched it again but the proxy thing. I passed…for now. Will I watch more? There have been so many doping scandals lately my interest in sports is waning. We'll see.
I'm just trying to figure out the meaning of your headline, “Screw You Internet.”
I'm not surprised at the ratings. My drift is that many people like to watch the opening ceremonies, but not the events (insert my wife, and many of my friends, here). I passed. It just doesn't interest me one bit.
Stephen, I read countless articles/comments about:
1. how NBC screwed up the Olympics
2. NBC was dumb for not making things available via the web before airing on TV
3. posts designed to educate people on how to get around the licensing rights so they could see content via another countries feed
4. suggestions that NBC viewership would be drastically hurt because they didn't hold a monopoly on TV viewing and viewers would rise up and watch content on their own terms.
Many of the technology (and television) articles I read would have you believe TV is already dead (and at the expense of the Internet). While the trend is certainly in place of broadcast networks being hurt by a variety of things, the broadcast nets are mostly hurt by CABLE and not the Internet!
And the old girl still has some life in her when it comes to big events. Some suggested NBC's ratings for the opening ceremonies would suffer due to online viewing. I found that as ridiculous as saying the Super Bowl's ratings would suffer because of the Internet. Even more ridiculous, the notion that any great number of people would install a proxy server so they could watch live feeds via other countries' web sites. I love the Internet more than most people, but the suggestion that it matters much in people's living rooms today, especially for big events is a joke. The headline was somewhat from the perspective of NBC: “screw you, tinfoil hat wearing predictors of doom. We don't care what you think and we got our ratings anyway!”
^^
Thanks for the explanation. Appreciate it. I haven't kept up with all of the hype, so I had no clue. lol
As i am sure you know, NBC is not the reason why people watch. It has to do with the Olympics. NBC gets the rights to show it because it was the highest bidder. But then again, I'm preaching to the choir.
You bring up a good point, Stephen. I suspect that like you, most of our readers haven't kept up with the hype so weren't as annoyed by it as I was. Probably a mistake to go with that title. Live and learn. And yes, you are preaching to the converted! I agree with you completely about it being about the Olympics and not about NBC.