Here’s today’s pass along of NBC’s Olympic ratings press release. Through four days of coverage the Beijing Olympics are averaging 5 million more viewers in the US than the Athens games through four days and are 16% ahead of the Athens games after four days of coverage based on household rating. It seems like this years events somewhat were scheduled in such a way that high-interest events ran earlier, so it will be interesting to see where these games end up vs. Athens after the full coverage is over. I think getting as many people as you can to watch early makes sense for everyone and look forward to seeing how much impact that might have had.

The total reach (as opposed to average viewing) has now grown to 157 million people in the US, over 50% of the television viewing population over the age of two. Not shabby!

OLYMPICS CONTINUE DOMINANCE FOR NBC

30.4 Million Average Viewers, 5 Million More Than Athens

NBCOlympics.com on MSN Already Surpasses Athens Games in Page Views, Streams and Users

BEIJING –Aug. 13, 2008 – Through four nights, the Beijing Olympics has averaged 30.4 million viewers, five million more than the first four days of the Athens Olympics in 2004. The 17.1 rating and 30 share is an increase of 16 percent from Athens. Additionally, NBCOlympics.com has already surpassed the total number of page views, unique users and video streams from the entire Athens Games in 2004.

• NBC’s Beijing Olympic four-day average viewership is 30.4 million, more than 5 million more than Athens in 2004 (24.7 million). The national rating average of 17.1/30 is the best primetime rating through the first Monday for a non-U.S. Summer Olympics since Barcelona in 1992 (17.4/33) and is a 16 percent jump from Athens in 2004 (14.7/26).

• Through four days NBCU has attracted 157 million total viewers, 15 million more than the first four days for Athens (142 million),

• Monday night’s 29.7 million average viewers bested Athens by 2.5 million viewers (27.1) and earned a 17.4 rating/28 share, a five percent jump from Athens in 2004 (16.6/27).

• NBC’s primetime coverage, which included Michael Phelps collecting his third Beijing gold medal and ninth career Olympic gold medal and saw a total of six medals at the Water Cube yesterday including three gold, peaked with a 20.1/31 and 34.4 million average viewers in the 10:00 p.m. half hour.

MORE PHELPS TONIGHT IN PRIMETIME ON NBC:
Tonight in primetime, Michael Phelps could become the greatest Olympian of all-time, swimming in two gold medal finals – the 200m butterfly and 4×200m freestyle relay. With three gold medals already in Beijing and nine career golds, this could be the night when Phelps breaks the all-time record for career gold medals (nine), which he tied yesterday and is currently shared by five athletes, including USA’s Carl Lewis and Mark Spitz.

NBCOLYMPICS.COM ON MSN SETS RECORDS FOR STREAMS, PAGE VIEWS AND UNIQUE USERS: Through only four days, NBCOlympics.com has already surpassed the totals for the entire Athens Games in page views, video streams and unique users. Here are the comparable stats through first four days of the Beijing Games compared to entire Athens Games:

• VIDEO STREAMS: 13.5 million for Beijing, 2.2 million for ENTIRE Athens Games (+514%)
• UNIQUE USERS: 16.9 million for Beijing, 11.1 million for ENTIRE Athens Games (+52%)
• PAGE VIEWS: 291.1 million for Beijing, 229.9 million for ENTIRE Athens Games (+27%)

NBC Universal, broadcasting its record 11th Olympics and surpassing ABC for the most Olympics broadcast by any network, will present an unprecedented 3,600 hours of Beijing Olympic Games coverage, the most ambitious single media project in history featuring the most live coverage (nearly 2,900 live hours in total), across the most platforms, of any Summer Olympics in history.