Nbc's Olympic Games Coverage: The Most Watched Event, Ever

NBC couldn't move for complaints over its coverage of the London Olympics this year, thankfully for the network, however, when it all came down it, they were top trumps by a considerable margin over their rivals in terms of those who tuned in. The UK's Guardian reports that the network attracted some 219.4 million viewers over the 17 days, with even more staggering online figures of some two billion page views and 159 million video streams. Nbc was showing all of the sports online for watching, but this didn't please many customers, who were unhappy at the broadcaster's decision not to show certain events live, instead waiting until primetime.

Even this news comes in the wake of fresh complaints that they cut parts of the closing ceremony out on Sunday night, with Muse and Kinks man Ray Davies not shown to American audiences. Disappointingly for them, JESSE J remained in the stream. Even worse, it interrupted the streaming to show a streaming of its new show 'Animal Practises' , which it claims some 12.8 American stayed tune to watch.

Nbc paid a mighty $1.18bn for US broadcast rights to the London Olympics, but executives said earlier this month they expected to break even because of the strong TV ratings. The network, which showed some 5,535 hours of sports and ceremonies across multiple broadcast and cable networks and online, said its primetime TV coverage averaged 31.1m viewers over the 17 nights of the Games. It all translates to the most watched event in U.S. history.