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NBC is crowing its Beijing Olympics has been the most watched American TV event of all time. That’s for 16 days on NBC and its cable channels that showed the games. Final figures won’t come in until Monday after tonight’s carnival-themed closing ceremonies, 
but already the 211 million viewers have surpassed the 209 million from the previously record-setting 1996 Atlanta Games. Here’s the asterisk, though: this statistic doesn’t account for the fact that there are more people and more televisions nowadays. So don’t take it all that seriously even though it sure sounds swell. Meanwhile, think about what a lost promotional opportunity this was for NBC Universal because its fall primetime schedule is a wasteland when it comes to both quantity and quality of new shows and specials. (How pathetic that Christian Slater’s lame “my evil twin is me” series was all that NBC had to market over and over ad nauseum during the games. It’s already clear that Jeff Zucker’s brilliant idea to save money by killing pilot season backfired big-time, and NBC will wind up in 4th place yet again.) Still, at a time when U.S. networks even have trouble attracting dougle-digit Nielsen ratings for shows, 
the Olympics is a big reminder that eyeballs and not just demographics do matter to advertisers. NBC reached a record $1 billion in ad sales before the start of this Olympics, and pulled in another $25 million after the games began. Which is why next time around NBC is going to face stiff competition for the U.S. broadcasting rights to the Olympics after its contract expires in 2012. For instance, ESPN and Fox said last week they plan to be in on the bidding process for at least the 2014 Winter Games and 2016 Summer Games when the IOC begins the auction process next year. I say a change is long overdue, especially after NBC’s coverage in Beijing was over-edited, ridiculously compliant to the Chinese government (Bob Costas is no Jim McKay, and he clearly was afraid to ultimately ask hard questions or adequately express pathos over the unthinkable tragedy of a murder and near-murder at the games, much less arrests or human rights), and still failed to let viewers watch what they wanted when they wanted on TV or online despite all the hype promising just that.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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I’m not in “the business”, but can someone explain to me why NBC didn’t let us watch a lot of these events in real time? Their insistence on packaging everything in prime time when we already knew the results was frustrating! It also would have been nice to see more of the actual sports events and LESS of the canned “come from behind athlete stories”. Just.let.us.watch.the.games!
(I realize a lot of the events would have happened in the middle of the night here in the US, but still) There has to be a better way.
As a viewer who finds swimming dull as chlorinated dishwater and track and field almost as tedious, I kept wanting to see some kick ass badminton or table tennis or judo or soccer; anything but the Micheal Phelp’s show. Then it hit me: if ping pong players and fencers wore bikinis… NBC might’ve aired the events.
Can someone who watched more prime time coverage than I, tell me if China’s human rights record was ever mentioned on NBC (Nightly News doesn’t count)?
And Canadian readers, did CBC ever discuss it (The National doesn’t count)?
NBC also failed online. When I went to take a look at an online clip, the site told me I needed to download a new viewer. Thanks, but I already have more than I need. I’ll pass on downloading some crappy viewer for two weeks of Olympics.
Idiots.
Did they ever even discuss the Americans who were arrested and returned home today? NBC did a prety piss poor job on the Olympics from a news standpoint; but hey, that is to be expected nowadays. China is such a great and warm welcoming country, we should all love them (please note sarcasm).
I’m sure a lot MORE sports will be played in bikinis after how NBC programmed this thing. However, I would have done the same. I TiVo’d every night and only watched the sports with women in skimpy outfits. I’m sure I’m far from alone. Why would anyone subject themselves to men’s basketball, soccer, gymnastics or swimming? NBC should really pay Missy & Kerry at least a $10 million bonus as they, other than Phelps, single-handedly were responsible for in my opinion half of the viewership of the entire broadcast.
NBC really tanked in their Olympic coverage. The only good thing was the live telecast of the gold medal basketball game between the USA and Spain at 11:30 PM Pacific and 2:30 AM Eastern Saturday Night/ Sunday Morning. The rest of the telecasts were packaged pieces of trash. NBC used all their networks (NBC, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen), show us live and let us choose to watch it if we want, if not people will TIVO it and watch it later. 2010 Winter Games are in Vancouver, Pacific Time Zone….Yeah, I’m sure that will be a debacle as well.
Encurtido — They aired them, you just had to tune in to MSNBC, where they aired 12 hrs of alternative coverage per day (5 AM to 5 PM) of everything from fencing to team handball to badminton to field hockey to table tennis. I’ve never seen so much coverage in my life.
There is cable to watch the events that you wanted to watch during these games. Personally I do wonder why NBC had to be nice to China during these Olympics too, but during the games, the focus in on the competition not the nation. Nikki, you might want to check your sources. Bob Costas didn’t report the murder of that volleyball coach, Jim Lampley did at the start of NBC’s daytime coverage on August 9th, and he expressed outrage over that murder.
As for my report card on these games, NBC deserves an A+. The reason for that is because Dick Ebersol worked hard to get Swimming, Gymnastics Finals, and the Marathons into live Primetime. What also helped is that the International Beach Volleyball Federation scheduled US Matches for US Primetime as well. To top it off, we got live Volleyball in Latenight, and Basketball at 8 or 9 in the morning with the exception of the Men’s Gold Medal Game.
With that schedule, the viewers responded in droves. However, I am going to add this qualifier as well, in 1996 NBC didn’t do any cable coverage of the Atlanta games coming off the failed triplecast in 1992. If the record numbers do include cable as Nikki suggests, the Atlanta record should still stand because the overall NBC record will fall below Atlanta’s final number.
Still, NBC should be congratulated for their work and I thank them for showing a record games and then blowing a big lead with horrible programming. The ironic thing is that Jeff Zucker will save his job with these games and Ben Silverman will twist in the wind due to the super crappy fall schedule. The only two things appealing were the “Heroes” advertising and “The Office” ad where Dwight presents his version of the Olympics.
I’m pissed that we didn’t get to watch ‘live’ in the mountain time zone. The olympics ran way past prime time, it wouldn’t have killed NBC to start coverage an hour before prime time. And they should have made it obvious that the mountain time and pacific time zones were getting the shaft. Happy 4th place, NBC!
Oh hush up. What in the world would NBC spending hours of time on China’s inhumanity do in the grand scheme? We’ve had all the time in the world to hold them responsible. Maybe if people stopped whining about global warming. Or perhaps NBC should have spent some time on Darfur, too? All whining, no action from people like you, so why should NBC waste their time? People would not have watched the coverage if they knew there would be a special on China’s politics. In fact, I don’t think spotlighting the GOOD aspects of China is such a bad thing. It’s not the people of China that are the problem, it’s their government.
It wasn’t the time to do investigative journalism into a murder or any protests or anything else of that nature. You guys don’t give a DAMN about China’s humanitarian issues other than to whine about it from afar, especially you Hollywood people. Take your self-righteousness and shove it. If you couldn’t separate the spirit of the games from the political controversies, you shouldn’t have been watching.
And sorry pal, but if you couldn’t get into THAT swimming, you’re not much of a sports fan.
I fail to see why the fact that there are more people and more TVs now then there were in 1996 has to do with anything. Why does everything have to have a so called “asterisk”. Nothing can ever be good without being explained away by stupid statistics that can’t be helped. Box office tallies that haters always say aren’t that good because it isn’t “as much” as something grossed 40 years ago after being released theatrically 12 times (People complaining about TDK, I’m looking at you) and now the amount of people that watched the Olympics this year isn’t really impressive because people had children?
You guys should take Penn and Teller’s advice and stop putting the past on such a pedestal.
Comment by TheaterFan — August 24, 2008 @ 8:59 pm:
“I fail to see why the fact that there are more people and more TVs now then there were in 1996 has to do with anything. Why does everything have to have a so called ‘asterisk.’ Nothing can ever be good without being explained away by stupid statistics that can’t be helped.”
I don’t think the overall number of viewers means anything. I have been vaguely following Olympics ratings, but was not particularly impressed by the results from the opening ceremony:
1. Atlanta (1996) 27.2/47
2. Beijing (2008) 21.5/37
3. Sydney (2000) 18.5/32
4. Seoul (1988) 18.3/33
5. Athens (2004) 18.0/30
From the opening ceremony alone, you know that it wasn’t going to grab more rating/share than Atlanta. Having to wait four years to get a rating equivalent to an airing of “American Idol” doesn’t seem like that great of a deal, but the theory is that you two weeks straight of 14.0+ in your time periods when everyone else is pulling 4.0+.
NBC’s guaranteed rating to advertisers was something like 14.5 during the Olympics, and they apparently delivered it. To really know if that means anything, you need to know the results from Atlanta, and I don’t really care enough to look.
Memo to Debi, in the Mountain Time Zone, most swimming events were about an hour from the start when they aired live on the east coast. On the west coast, they started at 7 PM despite the 10 PM eastern start. When it came to the live events, most of them started in late morning China time which was 10 AM for the swimming and Gymnastics events and was the earliest the Chinese were willing to go. NBC wanted more live events in primetime including the Men’s Basketball Gold Medal Game and live events from the Bird’s Nest, but got neither.
As it was, the gymnastics events ended well after midnight eastern time with the Men’s and Women’s all-around ending after midnight central time. This would have forced NBC to cut taped events from earlier in the broadcast if they went the national route for live coverage which would have been unfair to those who had to see that taped coverage on the east coast.
The Olympics are different than any other sport because each edition happens every four years and NBC wants to maximize its investment. I hate this as well as most of the readers here, but the Olympics is only a 2.5 week event compared to the NFL or other sports which air live across the nation. In the case of NBC’s Sunday Night Football, only the last hour and a half or so airs live in primetime on the west coast. It is then padded with Football Night in America and a drama or comedy rerun. The next NBC Sunday Night Football contract will likely include a later start time for the game which would likely be 9 PM with the pregame show and Dateline also airing on the night along with a later start time for the afternoon’s second game. This example alone explains why NBC aired the Salt Lake City, Beijing, and will air the upcoming Vancouver winter games on West Coast tape delay while the east coast enjoys live coverage.
Dear TheaterFan,
Percentage of TV viewers and number of movie tickets sold is important to note because numbers are declining for TV and movies. Declining numbers affect the kind of decisions TV and movie execs make. For example, you have more reality TV series to keep costs down and less scripted shows. For movies, you get more action movies and date movies and less mature films. So these numbers are important.
I don’t think people are “complaining” about the Dark Knight, but you would think from all the press that TDK was as popular as Titanic or Star Wars. But when you compare apples-to-apples, in this case actual number of tickets sold, TDK will only sell half the number of tickets of the original Star Wars and 2/3 of the tickets Titanic sold.
As for the Olympics, TV ratings are measured in total number of viewers as well as a percentage of people watching TV at the time. The point being made is that the per capita viewing is down. The networks are going to have to take this into account as they bid on future Olympics. So that’s an important trend that the numbers indicate.
I still can’t believe that with the exception of the final, all the English-language men’s soccer coverage had commercial breaks… in the middle of the game play! (Thanks for having us miss that 2nd Argentine goal in the semi-final, NBC!)
It took me back to the horrific TBS coverage of the ’92 World Cup final (which also, shockingly, had commercials.)
Thank God for Telemundo!
I couldn’t separate the spirit of the games from the political controversies, so I didn’t watch.
Hurray for NBC!
No doubt they’ll continue this great winning streak well into the new season with great shows such as another comeback for Knight Rider that no one asked for and the Christian Slater show that fired it’s creator/showrunner before they finished post production on the pilot.
Good luck to all involved.
As a resident of the UK, I think NBC could have taken a leaf from the BBC’s book. Live 24-hour coverage on BBC1 and BBC2 and BBC’s interactive offering, providing multi-screen coverage of every event in the games, all simulcast on bbc.co.uk … I don’t know why Americans would settle for less … ?
What was up with those awful closing ceremonies last night? Probably the most anticlimactic thing I’ve ever seen. They had the big event going on in the stadium, they cut away to London, then they never show how things ended at the stadium? Huh? Or was that crappy opera duet the end of the ceremony? Never would have guessed from watching it, and they way they did the coverage they made it seem like there was more to come.
Seriously, over two weeks of coverage and they end the whole thing with Costas sitting around yapping?
What would NBC have gained by noting China’s dismal record of human rights? Nothing, but the viewer would. Americans are woefully ignorant and this would have been an excellent opportunity to educate them. Instead Americans saw only bikini and speedo clad athletes who are joyfully celebrating. Wow what a wonderful place China must be to live. That is what Americans now think, see it isn’t SO bad. We had the opportunity to edcuate, but what we did was focus on Michael Phelps, who sole accomplishment was to swim from one side of a pool to the other faster than anyone else. Think about it that is ALL Phelps did, swim from one side of pool to another.
Phelps’ performance was remarkable but NBC was positively shameless (even saying that doesn’t do justice to how they overdid it) in the way they exploited it wall to wall. It was absolutely relentless and for several days marginalized the rest of the entire games. We cheered Phelps on in our house and I think NBC started that way too but devolved into self-serving mode quickly and then sustained it for days on end. I actually felt bad for Phelps because one could feel NBC possibly fueling a misplaced backlash that they were solely responsible for. It became unprofessional after a point. I have no doubt their coverage was an incredible effort and that many of their people worked very hard but some of the string pullers should be embarrassed for themselves – though we all know how little people like this care for the concept of dignity.
I thought these were the best games in years, and the coverage was, for the most part, outstanding. China really outdid itself, and should be very proud.
Mixing politics with the Olympics is not a good idea. The Olympics is a place where you put politics aside and relate on a human level – that’s a main part of its purpose. Even the Russians and Georgians were civil to each other. Why do we want to change that?
Nikki, Nikki, Nikki — you’re looking at the small screen rather than the big picture. This was not about NBC and the Olympics. NBC is owned by GE. This was about GE and CHINA…they’re not going to let NBC do or say anything that will jeopardize their foothold into China and selling airplane engines and what-not. Capitalism at its best. End of story.
I thought the olympics was supposed to be about the games. Instead I got double the commercial cycle and then come back to find Costas sitting on a couch yapping it up with some woman(could be a man by the voice) chatting like its the Oprah show. Nobody cares!!! We want sports not chatty cathy and her travelogue.
The how inappropriate to ask the indoor volleyball coach if he can go into his ‘emotions’ about his slain father in law!!! This is the reality show blow back mentality that nobodies private lives are to be respected. They turned it into tabloid trash. Can’t Costas just say we are very sorry about your loss? Like an adult? Create drama by covering the actual events not making up drama like its an episode of some crappy reality show.
NBC has a bunch of low IQ viewers who think that channel is still relevant.