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NBC pulled its best Saturday night ratings since 1990, as Michael Phelps won his eighth Olympic gold medal. The full Saturday night telecast averaged 31.1 million viewers, with nearly 40 million watching around 11 p.m. when Phelps and the U.S. team won the 4×100m medley relay.
Ratings for Saturday night averaged 17.6 with a 32 share, writes The Hollywood Reporter. The last time NBC pulled an audience that big on a Saturday night was on Feb. 24, 1990, when 31.4 million viewers tuned in for Empty Nest.
NBC’s Olympics coverage has pulled dramatically large audiences, beating the network’s own expectations. The network has drawn an average of about 30 million a night on NBC alone, with millions more on NBC’s cable channels. Average household rating as of Saturday night was a 17.4.
Though the coverage is likely to see a drop-off this week now that the most highly anticipated events - swimming and gymnastics - are over, NBC believes it will still see the Games surpass the Atlanta Games as the most-watched Olympics ever, according to The New York Times.
NBC also scored Olympics gold with ad sales, racking up $1 billion in sales before the Games began and another $10 million when the network released some inventory it had held back in case it needed to offer makegoods for ratings shortfalls.
NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker was quick to say that the success of the Games indicates the future of television is not as bad as has been forecast. “This proves the pipes still work,” he is quoted as saying. “When you have an event that transcends popular culture, the only place you can aggregate these audiences is network television.” Les Moonves, chief of CBS, voiced a similar - though more to the point - sentiment, saying that anybody who doubts the viability of network television after this is “nuts.”
Happily for NBC, the Olympics coverage has boosted other NBC shows, including the Today show and the evening newscast. Both have expanded their leads over the competition in the last week.
As for prime time in general, NBC still stands in last place. Zucker hopes the Olympics will help NBC - which has paraded a steady stream of ads for fall shows like Kath and Kim and My Own Worst Enemy in front of the massive Olympics audiences - pull one or two new entertainment hits with the upcoming season.
NBC has the rights to broadcast the next two Olympics, the Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010 and the Summer Games in London in 2012.
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