Lacking glam sports,
Games slide again
NBC averages 19.8 million total viewers Wednesday
By Toni Fitzgerald
Feb 26, 2010
With weather wreaking havoc once again on alpine skiing and the U.S. men's hockey team wrapping up a spot in the semifinals early in the day, NBC's primetime Olympics coverage fell to its lowest viewership of these Games Wednesday night.
NBC averaged 19.8 million total viewers, 500,000 fewer than the previous low, which also came on a night when the Games competed with "American Idol," Feb. 16.
But NBC still had something to crow about. Wednesday's viewership was up 24 percent over the comparable night in Turin, which drew a mere 16 million viewers.
And while "Idol" beat the Olympics for the third time in four faceoffs, the margin of victory remained far smaller than four years ago, when the Games were creamed not only by "Idol" but also "Desperate Housewives," "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost" and "House."
This year, "Idol" is the only show strong enough to defeat the Games, though that may say more about the aging competition than anything else.
Clearly Olympics fervor has cooled a bit following a very hot first week. Last Wednesday, when Americans won an unprecedented six medals, including three gold, the Games peaked with more than 29 million viewers, becoming the first show to defeat "Idol" in six years.
But since then viewership has been sliding, hitting Wednesday night's 13-night low, which was partly due to unforeseen circumstances.
First, the second run of the women's giant slalom was pushed off until yesterday due to pea soup-like fog.
Second, one of the buzziest draws of the Games, U.S. men's ice hockey, played hours before primetime, defeating Switzerland 2-0 in a game that started at 3 p.m.
Viewership likely rose last night despite facing another "Idol" edition. The performance versions of "Idol" draw better numbers than the results shows, and NBC was airing the popular ladies' figure skating final last night.
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