NBC - NBC MAKES BIG SPLASH WITH OLYMPIC SWIMMING

NBC MAKES BIG SPLASH WITH OLYMPIC SWIMMING

Some 32 million viewers tuned in to watch Michael Phelps take his fourth and fifth gold medals in the 200-meter butterfly and the 800 freestyle relay at the Summer Olympics Tuesday night -- the best Tuesday-night audience recorded by NBC since 2002 during the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The telecast's closest competitor for the night was a repeat of CBS's NCIS with 7.2 million viewers. Reporting on the results, today's (Thursday) New York Times asked in a headline, "So Who Exactly Is Watching Those Reruns of NCIS ?" Well, according to Nielsen figures, the NCIS audience was down just 15 percent from its average this summer, not a particularly hard hit given the strength of what TV journalists are calling the "Olympics juggernaut."

14/08/2008