Big Opening Viewing for the Beijing Olympics

The opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing on NBC averaged 34.2 million viewers, making it the biggest television event since the Super Bowl. This was the biggest audience ever for an Olympic opening ceremony not held in the U.S. This viewing has even done better than this year's Academy Awards and the finale of American Idol, according to Nielsen Media Research, reported the Associated Press.

The numbers were even more impressive since it was a Friday night in August when most people are out doing other things besides watching TV. The most recent summer Olympics in Athens, four years ago, only had 25.4 million viewers for its first night and Sydney in 2000 had 27.3 million viewers, according to AP.

Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics, told AP, "It was a magical and memorable spectacle and a great way to start the Beijing Olympics." The opening night was good news for the network and its advertisers, especially since there was some concern about computer users getting to video feeds before it was viewed on television. Because of the time difference, NBC aired the ceremony in the eastern U.S. 12 hours after it happened in China.

The delay in viewing may have helped NBC because of word of mouth that spread about the spell-binding ceremony, which featured an estimated 15,000 people, many of which were performing intricate dance moves that used Beijing's new stadium as their backdrop.

The networks site logged 70 million hits for the pictures it posted of the events before the television network aired the video. NBC Universal said it was working with Olympics officials to make sure any video of the events, for which NBC has exclusive U.S. rights, are not shown on other Web sites, network spokeswoman Kathy Kelly-Brown told AP.