General

NBC’s Olympic Coverage Beats American Idol. All’s Well.

Feb 18, 2010, 5:45 PM UTC

For all of us who think that NBC is foolish for packaging the best Winter Olympics events of the day into a neatly-tied, Costas-hosted box, and for not giving us the newsworthy events as they happen – like the rest of the world seems to be doing – the peacock network has something to say to you:â†µâ†µGo suck an icicle.â†µ

â†µâ†µLast night, NBC pulled off their biggest victory yet, not only recording an overnight rating of 19.3, but crushing American Idol in the process. SportsBusiness Daily reports that the ratings for the Olympics on NBC were 61% higher than American Idol during the 9 PM hour.â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥That is the net’s best overnight for the Vancouver Games to date, and marks the first time in six years that any telecast has outrated “Idol.” Head-to-head from 9:00-10:00pm, NBC’s Olympic coverage averaged a 19.8 overnight, while “Idol” earned a 12.3 overnight.â†µâ†µIt was the perfect storm for NBC, as four of the biggest names on the American side competed yesterday, three of whom – and this is important – were competing live in primetime. Apolo Anton Ohno was on the short track and he was the fourth of the four big names in competition yesterday. The other three, Lindsey Vonn (on tape delay), Shani Davis and Shaun White all took home gold medals during primetime.â†µ

â†µIt doesn't matter how popular American Idol is, they couldn't compete with actual American Idols.â†µ

â†µâ†µIt should be noted that this amazing night of American success at the Olympics did coincide with the “Hollywood Week” on American Idol, which is the last of their pre-taped shows. Next week, the Olympics, including women’s figure skating on Tuesday, will go up against the first round of live singing on Idol. It will be interesting to see if the ratings for Idol rebound once the audience is able to participate in the voting process.â†µ

â†µâ†µNow, to the point of NBC’s coverage – just because they are getting high ratings doesn’t mean they are doing the right thing. NBC executives (see: Ebersol, Dick) have to think that holding back events like the women’s downhill for exclusive coverage in primetime will help the evening ratings. They can point to last night’s win as evidence of that. But putting the entire event on CNBC or MSNBC live as it happens cannot put a big enough dent into the ratings to make all of the backlash worthwhile. The fact of the matter is, people are watching The Olympics not NBC. The network is more concerned about capitalizing on their ratings during the Olympics – in an effort to recoup some of the hundreds of millions of dollars they overbid for the rights to air the Games – than trying to rebuild their embattled brand through superior coverage. In other words, the ratings are high now, but they’ve done so much damage to their brand in the process that when the Olympics are over, nobody is going to want to come back. (Well, except for The Marriage Ref because Jerry Seinfeld always does a number.)â†µ

â†µâ†µJust like Comcast is repackaging itself into Xfinity, they may need to change NBC into something completely different too. At the very least, a change of leadership has to be on the horizon. There has to be someone out there who understands the current media landscape better than those in charge of NBC and their Olympic coverage.â†µ

â†µâ†µWait, they just beat the number one show in America by 61% in primetime. For a company that’s been getting crushed in the ratings for years – for everything other than Sunday Night Football, mind you – I suppose that instant gratification is better than no gratification at all.â†µ

â†µ

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

See More: