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Main >> News Listing >> February 2002 >> Article ID 5952
 NBC Puts Competition on Ice | Type: Internet Article |
| | NBC Puts Competition on Ice | Feb 22, 2002 | by Mark Armstrong
Summary:
The Salt Lake City games will continue through Sunday, with a closing ceremony featuring 'N Sync, Christina Aguilera, Harry Connick Jr., KISS and Bon Jovi, among others.
Read on for thw whole article. |
It could be NBC's best ratings yet...that is, if the Russians don't protest those numbers, too.
The Peacock network soared to an indisputable first-place finish Thursday night, as its Winter Olympics coverage of the ladies figure-skating finals scored the highest Thursday-night ratings for any network since the 1998 series finale of Seinfeld.
More than 43 million viewers tuned in as 16-year-old Long Island darling Sarah Hughes nabbed a gold medal, Russian Irina Slutskaya settled for silver and frontrunner Michelle Kwan stumbled to a bronze. From 8 p.m. to 12 a.m., NBC notched a 26.8 household rating and 41 share--tying the July 25, 1996, telecast of the Atlanta Summer Olympics as the second highest-rated Olympics broadcast on a Thursday night.
It was well shy of Seinfeld's finale (35.2 rating/51 share), but it was still a phenomenal showing as NBC winds down its Winter Olympics. (And did we mention this was freakin' figure skating?!?)
NBC's telecast peaked at 11 p.m., drawing 52.3 million viewers (32.5 rating/53 share) when Americans Hughes, Kwan and Sasha Cohen were skating. The event outperformed its combined competition by 76 percent, and is up 16 percent compared to Day 15 of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano.
All told, the network has scored high marks from critics for its Olympics coverage this year. Its skating coverage has been boosted ratings-wise by the recent publicity over allegations of bias involving figure-skating judges--which led to a second gold medal being handed to a second-place Canadian pair. Thursday night's final spawned even more "Skategate"-style controversy, as Russia filed a formal protest saying Slutskaya was a victim of "biased" judging and should be given a gold medal.
The Salt Lake City games will continue through Sunday, with a closing ceremony featuring 'N Sync, Christina Aguilera, Harry Connick Jr., KISS and Bon Jovi, among others.
Of course, Thursday was nowhere near the highest-rated Olympics telecast of all-time. That honor belongs to CBS' coverage of the infamous Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding figure-skating faceoff in Lillehammer, Norway. The February 23, 1994, event (which fell on a Wednesday) stands as the sixth most-watched telecast in TV history, drawing a whopping 78.8 million viewers for a 48.5 rating/64 share.
So, in other words, crooked judges draw viewers--but not as many as pipe-wielding hit men. Ah, the magic of figure skating. |
 Source: E! Online | |
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