NBC Sees Mediocre Olympics TV Ratings

NBC, criticised for their delay in Olympic coverage, has seen mediocre overnight Olympics television ratings.

The Nielsen company said Tuesday that overnight ratings from the America’s largest cities for Monday’s prime-time broadcast were off 5 percent from the corresponding night in Beijing four years ago. For the first three nights of Olympics coverage, NBC’s London ratings were running well ahead of Beijing.

Four years ago on the same night, NBC was able to run many events live, including a gold medal race by Michael Phelps. NBC’s prime-time this year was all tape-delayed material, with a disappointing showing by the U.S. men’s gymnastics team.

Nielsen expects to report a fuller estimate of how many people watched Monday’s broadcast later on Tuesday.