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I don’t think I have really done anything on either of my blogs about the Olympics over the last weeks, and really probably should of, because as you know they were extravagant, remarkable and simply amazing.

So I guess a brief recap on how huge and fabulous and overwhelming they were is better than nothing!

With all of the numbers finally in, it is fact that the Beijing Olympic 2008 Games are the most-watched event in US TV history, ever. Historically, Olympic games hosted in North American time zones usually lead the way in viewers, so in mroe ways than one this is an amazing accomplishment of the Chinese Olympics.

Nielsen Media Research has verified that 211 million viewers tuned in to China’s Olympics on NBC Universal’s broadcast network and cable channels through 16 days of coverage. This beats the previous record-holder, the 1996 Atlanta Games, by 2 million, said an article from Trendhunter last week.

I had heard on a news broadcast a couple weeks ago that hundreds of thousands of people across the world were downloading videos of the Olympics and watching online, so it is also very important to note that in our world today of declining TV ratings and competing Internet feeds, NBC boasted 11% higher ratings (averaging 27.7 million viewers per night) than its coverage of the Athens Games in 2004.

I would be curious to see if there was an increase in viewership in a certain timezone or country.  Has anyone seen any numbers like this?

What do you think the increase in viewership resulted from?

Was it the fact that host country has the largest population in the world, so everyone in China tuned in?  Was it newsworthy athletes like Shawn Johnson and Micheal Phelps?

What are your thoughts?

Did you watch?  On TV? Online?  Both?

Source: Trendhunter 

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