London 2012 was 'biggest ever US TV event'

[Gob]

NBC's coverage of London 2012 was the "most-watched television event in US history", the TV network has announced.

Citing Nielsen ratings figures, NBC said more than 219 million viewers watched the Games on its networks, compared to the 215 million who tuned in for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

The network broadcast some 5,535 hours of Olympic coverage on TV and online.

But it drew criticism for delaying the broadcast of popular events until primetime hours.

Viewers also complained of problems with online streaming and edited versions of the opening and closing ceremonies.

Sunday's closing ceremony - which was cut down by almost an hour and omitted such acts as Muse and Ray Davies - drew an audience of 31 million people.

Yet NBC enraged some viewers by leaving the ceremony at 23:00 local time to air a new sitcom, Animal Practice, and then half an hour of local news.

At midnight, the network returned to the ceremony to screen the eight-minute finale by The Who.

NBC was previously criticised for cutting a tribute to victims of the 7 July London bombings out of its opening ceremony coverage.

NBC paid $1.18bn (£751.3m) for the exclusive US broadcast rights to the Games.

Meanwhile, the BBC said its coverage of the Olympics was watched by 90% of the UK's population and that 51.9 million people had watched at least 15 minutes of coverage.

BBC One controller Danny Cohen said the Games had been seen by the "largest TV audiences since the pre-digital age".

[dales]

Armstrong's walk on the moon some 43 years ago prolly garnered larger numbers.

[Gob]

I wouldn't be surprised if you are correct dales.

[Scooter]

Probably not, since the total U.S. population in 1969 was 203 million.

[rubato]

And it was in these Olympics where British sports fans all started to act like Americans, per the international sports press.

yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

That sports press you have as of yet been unable to link to?

What's so bad/good about American sports fans, and in which way were British sports fans acting like them?
please don't tell me he's trying to be funny again?

[Long Run]

NBC knows how to make the Olympics interesting to the casual and nonsports fan, thereby driving huge ratings. Most sports fans did not like the coverage very much, but if you were willing to work at it you could find live coverage of stuff you wanted to watch. They have most events OnDemand, which is good to watch things I missed, but it drives me crazy that when the original broadcast breaks for a commercial, there is a momentary cut-away and then the event resumes as if there had been the 2-5 minutes of commercials -- why don't they keep showing the event!

[dales]

Probably not, since the total U.S. population in 1969 was 203 million.

I was thinking of Neilsen ratings.

[Lord Jim]

It's kind of an apples and oranges thing....

To get its number for the Olympics, NBC is adding up all the people who watched as much as 15 minutes of programming over two weeks....

As opposed to a single event like man's first walk on the moon....

[Lord Jim]

The televised moon walk attracted an audience of 125 million in the U.S., almost twice the projections made by the networks when the walk was original scheduled for 2 a.m. EDT on July 21. (It started at 10:52 p.m. July 20.)

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2009/0 ... big/23014/

That looks to be roughly the same percentage of the population as watched some portion of the Olympics, but again it's much more impressive when you consider the fact that it was for one single event, not dozens of events combined.

[loCAtek]

Best Olympic torch lighting ever;