Opening Ceremony Lights Up Ratings
Drummers perform during the Opening Ceremony by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
As Friday night's Beijing opening ceremony began, co-host Matt Lauer, who had seen rehearsals, told viewers to prepare for "a big show." It certainly didn't disappoint. The elaborate, dazzling celebration - which,
according to the Games' official site, included 20,000 performers - was a hit in the U.S., even as it aired on a 12-hour tape delay. NBC drew a 21.5 overnight rating and a 37 share from 8 to 11:19 pm/ET.
The network says that's the highest overnight rating ever for a non-American Olympic opening ceremony, surpassing Sydney's 18.5/32 in 2000. Four years ago the Athens Games opened with an 18.0/30.
Read Matt Roush's review of the opening ceremony
here.
UPDATE: Final numbers are in, and the telecast attracted an average 34.2 million viewers, making it the most-watched non-U.S. opening. That tops the 27.3 million from Sydney. (The last Summer Games in America, Atlanta in 1996, had 39.8 million.) The rating dropped down from the overnight figure to 18.6, but that's also a non-U.S. record for NBC.
