FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, February 10th, 2014

MORE THAN 100 MILLION AMERICANS HAVE ALREADY WATCHED THE SOCHI OLYMPICS ON THE NETWORKS OF NBCUNIVERSAL

NBCU’s Total Friday-Saturday Audience Tops 2010 Vancouver Olympics & 2006 Torino Winter Games 

14.4 Household Rating for NBC’s Sunday Primetime Olympic Telecast Tops Live 2010 Vancouver Games & Up 8% From 2006 Torino Olympics

Record-Breaker for NBCSN: Most-Watched Daytime & Event (5.5 Million Viewers) in Net’s History for 2nd Consecutive Day; Doubles 2012 London Viewership

NBC Posts Most-Watched Winter Olympics Opening Sunday Late Night Show in More than a Quarter Century

STAMFORD, Conn. – February 10, 2014 – More than 100 million Americans have watched the Sochi Winter Games on the networks of NBCUniversal, according to fast cume data provided by The Nielsen Company.

Through Saturday, 106.5 million Americans – more than 1/3 of the U.S. population – have watched the 2014 Sochi Games on NBCUniversal networks NBC, NBCSN and MSNBC. On Thursday, NBC aired its first-ever Winter Olympics telecast prior to the Friday night Opening Ceremony.  Saturday was the first full day of coverage, which included live competition on NBCSN and MSNBC.

For the Friday Opening Ceremony and Saturday Day 1 coverage, a total of 97.3 Americans tuned in to the networks of NBCUniversal – up from 96.7 million for the opening Friday and Saturday of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and 88.4 million for the 2006 Torino Games.

  • Last night’s primetime Olympics telecast on NBC (7:30-11 p.m. ET) posted a 14.4 household rating/22 share – up from NBC’s live (ET/CT) coverage of the opening Sunday of the 2010 Vancouver Games (14.3 HH rating/23 share), according to live plus same day fast national data released today by The Nielsen Company.  Last night’s telecast averaged 26.3 million viewers, essentially even with the 26.4 million for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
  • In addition, the Sochi Sunday primetime telecast was up 13% in viewership and 8% in household rating from the opening Sunday of the last European Winter Olympics (23.2 million viewers and 13.3 household rating/20 share for Torino in 2006).
  • NBCSN on Sunday continued breaking network records for its first-ever Winter Olympics coverage posting an average of 2.9 million viewers (6 a.m.-2:23 p.m. ET) – more than doubling the same time window on the opening Sunday of the 2012 London Olympics (1.2 million). NBCSN posted its best daytime viewership for the second consecutive day following Saturday’s 2.6 million average.
  • Also for the second consecutive day, NBCSN set a record for the network’s most watched event as its 1-2:23 p.m. ET coverage of men’s ski jumping averaged 5.5 million viewers. Saturday’s coverage of team figure skating was the prior record holder with 4.9 million viewers.
  • NBC’s 11:30 p.m. Olympics Late Night show, hosted by Bob Costas, averaged 8.0 million viewers on Sunday – the most-watched Winter Olympics opening Sunday late night show since the 1988 Calgary Games and up 77 percent from Torino and three percent from Vancouver.
  • NBC’s Sunday daytime show (2-6 p.m. ET) posted 15.4 million viewers – up 23 percent from Torino and up 14 percent from Vancouver.

TOP 10 METERED MARKETS FOR NBC PRIMETIME COVERAGE:

Market HH rating/share
1. Salt Lake City 23.5/41
2. Minneapolis 22.0/35
3. Denver 21.8/33
4. Kansas City 20.9/30
5. Milwaukee 20.2/31
6. Portland 19.1/29
7. Ft. Myers 19.0/28
8. Indianapolis 18.8/28
9. Albuquerque 18.7/28
10. Oklahoma City 18.5/25

ABOUT NBC OLYMPICS

A division of the NBC Sports Group, NBC Olympics is responsible for producing, programming and promoting NBCUniversal’s Olympic coverage. It is renowned for its unsurpassed Olympic heritage, award-winning production, and ability to aggregate the largest audiences in U.S. television history.

–NBC OLYMPICS–