NBC's rating remains strong; NBC Network draws best audience ever

NBC was averaging a 17.6 final rating and 31.1 million viewers for prime-time London Games coverage heading into Sunday night’s closing ceremony, up 9 percent and 12 percent, respectively, from the same 16-night period at the 2008 Beijing Games. Saturday night’s coverage finished with a 12.6 rating and 21.8 million viewers, up 22 percent from the same night in Beijing and marking the 15th time in 16 nights that average viewership has surpassed the comparable night four years ago (see chart).

NBC’s 10 weekday daytime Olympic telecasts averaged 7.1 million viewers during the Games, marking the best average for that segment for any non-U.S. Olympics ever. Viewership during each telecast topped its comparable period during Beijing. The 7.1 million average was up 31 percent from Beijing and 37 percent from the 2004 Athens Games.

NBC Sports Network finished with an average of 4.35 million viewers for Thursday’s U.S.-Japan gold-medal women’s soccer game, marking the network’s most-viewed telecast ever. The figure tops the previous high of 3.6 million viewers set during Game Three of the 2010 Blackhawks-Flyers NHL Stanley Cup Final. Additionally, the match drew 1.47 million streams on NBCOlympics.com, marking the most-streamed event in Olympics history, just ahead of the 1.46 million streams for the London Games women’s all-around gold-medal competition.

Meanwhile, Telemundo averaged 3.6 million viewers for Mexico’s win over Brazil in the men’s gold-medal soccer match on Saturday morning, marking the network’s most-viewed Olympic event ever. And the CBC averaged 1.6 million viewers for Canada’s bronze medal win over France in women’s soccer on Thursday morning, which marked the team’s first medal in Olympic history.