NBC earns no medals for Olympic coverage

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published February 17, 2006

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NEW YORK - The start of NBC's 17-day Olympics cavalcade took a less-than-commanding position in the Nielsen rankings last week.

It wasn't the Winter Games from Turin that seized first and second place in the ratings, but battling singers on Fox's American Idol Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

After that came the forensics sleuths of CBS's drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, then the sexy docs of Grey's Anatomy and the women of Wisteria Lane on Desperate Housewives, both ABC series.

NBC had to settle for a close sixth place for its Sunday prime-time Olympics coverage, seventh place for Saturday's broadcast and ninth place for Friday's opening ceremony, according to Nielsen Media Research.

To no one's surprise, there were substantially fewer viewers than four years ago, when the Winter Olympics originated from American soil. Salt Lake City's first-night pageantry in 2002 drew 45.6-million viewers, more than twice this year's 22.17-million. NBC's prime-time coverage for all the Salt Lake City games averaged 32 -million viewers. Saturday and Sunday's Olympics viewership was about 23.2-million.

Nonetheless, NBC won the week in prime time overall, averaging 15.6-million viewers , while CBS had 12.6-million, ABC had 11.9-million and Fox had 11.0-million .

Univision had 4.3-million, the WB 3.4-million, UPN 3.0-million , Telemundo 1.1-million, and Pax TV 420,000 .

NBC's Nightly News led the evening-news pack, averaging 9.8-million viewers, while ABC's World News Tonight had 9.2-million, and the CBS Evening News 8-million.

1. Idol-Tue. , Fox, 31.2

2. Idol-Wed., Fox, 28.7

3. CSI, CBS, 27.4

4. Grey's Anatomy, ABC, 25.4

5. Housewives, ABC, 23.5

6. Olympics-Sun., NBC, 23.24

7. Olympics-Sat., NBC, 23.23

8. House, Fox, 22.2

9. Olympics Open, NBC, 22.2

10. Without a Trace, CBS, 20.3

11. Dancing Stars, ABC, 20

12. Survivor, CBS, 18.8

13. Lost, ABC, 18.7

14. CSI: Miami, CBS, 18.6

15. Grammy Awards, CBS, 17

16. Two & Half Men, CBS, 16.3

17. NCIS, CBS, 16.1

18. Makeover, ABC, 15.9

19. SVU, NBC, 15.2

20. Dancing Results, ABC, 14.6

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