NBC Olympics coverage rises; Fox's stormy NFL

With Michael Phelps earning his sixth gold medal in Beijing, NBC's Olympics coverage Thursday climbed from the previous night.

NBC’s ratings (30 million viewers, 10.4 preliminary adults 18 to 49 rating and a 27 share) gradually rose throughout the evening as the network covered men’s and women’s volleyball, then jumped significantly between 10 p.m. and midnight for Phelps' medal run and women’s gymnastics. The night is down from a comparable night in Athens, but that was also Athens’ highest-rated telecast of the Games. The numbers mark NBC's biggest Thursday delivery in four years.

Potential sports competition from Fox was thwarted by severe weather. Fox’s NFL pre-season football game, Carolina Panthers at Philadelphia Eagles, was interrupted by a thunderstorm at around 8:30 p.m. Fox put on an unscheduled "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" repeat. The game resumed at 9:24 p.m. (3.4 million, 1.2/4).

CBS landed in second place for the night with "Big Brother" (6.7 million, 2.2/7) and repeats. ABC was fourth with repeats (3.2 million, 1.0/3).

Comments

[Jason]

The TV ratings reported for Thursday/Wednesday night is only for 8PM-11PM and omits the ratings from 11PM and later. Since both the Mens/Womens Gymnastics on both nights started around 10:30PM and ended at 1:00AM, the ratings you are reporting are inaccurate as to the 'real' viewership of Primetime Olympic games.

[JAMES HIBBERD]

Yesterday's post contains the full telecast numbers, not just prime.

Morning ratings stories always use prime numbers for total viewers and the adult demo since full telecast ratings outside of prime are not yet available.

I typically update when the national numbers arrive if they change the "story" of the night. Wednesday, the story did not change -- NBC still won, but was still down from Athens for first time -- but I updated anyway. Last night, the story did change a bit -- total viewers steady, but the adult demo increased -- and I updated just now.