Early Weekend TV Ratings Decline Sharply for Games

NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in Turin got off to a slow start in the weekend TV ratings.

Friday’s opening ceremony drew an average of 22.2 million viewers at any one time, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research. That’s less than half the average audience that watched the opening of the Salt Lake City Games on NBC in 2002, and it was down 18% from CBS’ telecast of the Nagano Games in 1998.

The Olympics typically steamroller whatever rival networks throw in their path, but this year has already proved an exception. During the 10 p.m. hour Sunday, NBC’s coverage finished second to ABC’s medical soap “Grey’s Anatomy” (25.3 million versus 21.2 million), according to early data. ABC even took first place for Sunday among the advertiser-friendly demographic of adults 8 to 49 -- the first time a rival network has beaten coverage of competitive Winter Olympic events since at least 1988.

At least publicly, NBC executives say they are not worried. The company estimated Monday that at least 112 million viewers watched at least some of the Olympic coverage over the weekend on one of the NBC Universal networks (besides the flagship over-the-air network, coverage is also airing on cable outlets Bravo, CNBC and USA).