Winter Olympics ratings slipping but still good

Posted Feb 24, 2010 by Walt Belcher

Updated Mar 5, 2010 at 10:15 AM

Ratins results from the first 11 nights of the Olympic Winter Games (through Feb. 22) show a total audience of 171 million viewers watching the games on NBC and its sister networks owned by NBC Universal.

Average viewership is 25.5 million and that is 24 percent more than watched the Winter Games in Turino in 2006 but less that the 39.7 million average for the 1994 games.

In the Tampa-St. Petersburg TV market on Tuesday night, Olympic coverage peaked at 362,000 viewers, while “American Idol” topped 406,000.