TV Rating Easily Beats Past Olympics Record

Surpassing predictions by advertising and television executives, CBS’ coverage of Wednesday’s Winter Olympics drew the third-highest rating for any sporting event and the eighth-largest total audience of any sponsored program in U.S. television history.

The telecast, which included Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding in the women’s figure skating technical program competition, attracted 64% of the prime-time audience, with an estimated 110,530,000 people watching at least part of the three-hour presentation from Norway, according to figures released Thursday by the A.C. Nielsen Co.

CBS got a 48.5 rating for the broadcast (the rating is a percentage of the number of U.S. TV households that are tuned in). CBS’ coverage of Super Bowl XVI in 1982, between the Cincinnati Bengals and the San Francisco 49ers, remains the highest rated sports event with a 49.1. Super Bowl XVII the following year on NBC is second with a 48.6. The highest-rated program of all time is the final episode of “MASH,” which got a 60.2 in 1983.

The Olympics telecast, which also included coverage of Bonnie Blair’s victory in the women’s 1,000-meter speedskating and of the men’s giant slalom ski race, easily beat the previous Olympic record--a 33.3 on Sept. 4, 1972, on ABC, which featured swimmer Mark Spitz winning his unprecedented seventh gold medal.

Los Angeles-area ratings surpassed the national figures, with KCBS-TV Channel 2 drawing a 49.4 rating and 65% of the audience. The station’s 11 p.m. newscast, which immediately followed the skating, had a 26 rating, which station officials said they believed was its highest since the 26.8 it had Feb. 28, 1983, following the final episode of “MASH.”

The long-anticipated showdown between Kerrigan and Harding also helped television viewing levels soar throughout the nation. An average of 71.4 million of the 94.2 million households with televisions--75.8%--had their televisions on during prime time. That marked a 12.3% increase over the previous Wednesday and a 13.5% leap over Feb. 9, the last Wednesday before the start of the Winter Olympics.

In Los Angeles, the prime-time figure of 76.4% surpassed that of coverage of two recent cataclysmic events to hit the region: the first full day of civil unrest on April 30, 1992, (71%) and the first round of Southern California wildfires last Oct. 27 (67%).