Tv, Olympics | featured news

The Nielsen company said 36 million people watched Sunday night's coverage, the biggest audience for the second night of a non-U.S. summer Olympics competition since TV began covering them in 1960. Counting the opening ceremonies on Friday, an average of 35.8 million people have tuned in for the three nights, well above the 30.6 million who watched the first three nights in Beijing in 2008 and considerably more than the 24 million who saw the first three nights of the Athens games of 2004.

Preliminary estimates show that Saturday night's NBC telecast scored the highest ratings for the first evening of an Olympics competition outside of the United States. The Nielsen company said Sunday that its measurement of the nation's largest cities showed ratings for the Olympics telecast were up 8 percent over opening night in Beijing four years ago. A fuller measurement of viewership is expected later on Sunday.

The Olympics opening ceremony was seen in the U.S. by 40.7 million people, making it the most-watched opening ceremony for a summer or winter Olympics.

A look at media coverage of the Summer Olympics: Even before NBC signed on for its coverage of the Summer Olympics in London on Friday, it drew a storm online for its decision not to stream the opening ceremony digitally. Despite the grumbling, it's a decision that may pay off for the network.

The Olympics give fourth-place NBC a shot to heavily promote its new and returning shows (and its NBC Sports Network) to a massive audience. No one likes losing money. But to NBC, the $100 million of red ink it may spill on the Summer Olympics is more like an investment — and a lesson in TV Economics 101.

It will be great for TV ratings, that’s for sure. A group of pole dancing advocates wants the activity, more commonly associated with dim nightclubs, recognized as an Olympic sport. The Pole Fitness Association and other pole dancing advocacy groups are circulating petitions to have vertical dance, which they compare to gymnastics, added to the London 2012 lineup.

Olympic filmmaker Bud Greenspan, who presented his subjects 'as people first and athletes second,' won eight Emmys and a Peabody, as well as the International Olympic Committee's Olympic Order.Bud Greenspan, award-winning filmmaker, writer, character and, arguably, the world's No. 1 fan of the Olympics, has died.

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."