Tv Ratings, Winter Olympics | featured news

Although NBC may have lost up to $200 million on the Winter Olympics, the network drew record viewership, helping it get past the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien late-night fiasco.

With skiing and figure skating as its big ticket events, NBC's Friday night coverage of the Winter Olympics had no trouble rolling to ratings wins in all key measures, even if the generally slow night led to low demo ratings.

Shani Davis, Lindsey Vonn and Shaun White are the true American Idols. In a startling turnaround from the night before, the Olympics clobbered Fox's "American Idol" in the ratings Wednesday night. The Nielsen Co. said that during the one hour the two shows competed against one another, the Olympics were seen by 30.1 million people while 18.4 million watched "American Idol."

The Nielsen Co. said an estimated 32.6 million people watched Friday's opening ceremony, approaching the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Games in viewer interest.