NEW YORK (AP) — Preliminary estimates show that Saturday night’s NBC telecast scored the highest ratings for the first evening of an Olympics competition outside of the United States.
The Nielsen company said Sunday that its measurement of the nation’s largest cities showed ratings for the Olympics telecast were up 8 percent over opening night in Beijing four years ago. A fuller measurement of viewership is expected later on Sunday.
NBC was the target of many Twitter complaints on Saturday for not telecasting the marquee men’s swimming competition live, instead showing it on tape delay in prime-time. But prime-time ratings are the report card that the company cares about the most and, thus far, viewers are responding to the strategy.
