TV Ratings : Olympics Carry NBC to Victory

NBC crowed Tuesday about the final ratings for its coverage of the Summer Olympics in Barcelona. The network said that, overall, its ratings were 11% higher than what it had promised advertisers and also exceeded by 2% the figures it posted during the 1988 Games in Seoul. The prime-time coverage alone was down by one-tenth of a point compared to 1988, however. Still, NBC researchers estimated that 192 million people watched at least some of the network coverage. The A. C. Nielsen Co. reported that NBC averaged a 16.1 rating in prime time last week, compared to 8.5 for CBS, 8.4 for ABC and 6.1 for Fox.

* CBS didn’t make much headway in its effort to counterprogram the Olympics on Tuesday with the conclusion of a two-part miniseries. “To Be the Best” attracted only 13% of the available audience and ranked No. 39 among the week’s 76 prime-time programs, well behind the athletic endeavors on NBC (which ranked No. 4) and ABC’s reruns of “Roseanne” (No. 5) and “Coach” (No. 9).

Points Share 1. “Olympics (Thursday)” (NBC) 16.6 32 “Olympics (Monday)” (NBC) 16.6 31 3. “Olympics (Wednesday)” (NBC) 15.8 31 4. “Olympics (Tuesday)” (NBC) 15.4 29 5. “Roseanne” (ABC) 14.5 24 * “To Be the Best” (CBS) 7.7 13

(Each rating point represents 921,000 homes. Share is the percentage of viewing audience.)

Complete list, F9