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NBC Wins Week Easily With Olympics

Aug 31, 2004  •  Post A Comment

The Summer Olympics in Athens remained a top prime-time television draw in their second week, with NBC once again easily winning the ratings race. According to Nielsen Media Research, the week of Aug. 23-29 belonged to NBC, with the top seven shows among viewers 2+ all Olympics programming. Monday night’s decathalon coverage, beach volleyball semifinals and gymnastics individual event finals took the No. 1 spot for the week with a 9.4 rating.

In total viewers, NBC won the week with 22.0 million, with CBS coming in a distant second at 7.4 million. NBC also won the week among adults 18 to 49 (7.3/21) and adults 25 to 54 (8.6/22), with CBS coming in second with a 2.4 rating and 7 share among adults 18 to 49 and a 2.9 rating and 8 share among adults 25 to 54.

CBS garnered all the rest of the top 20 slots among viewers 2+, starting with “CSI” in eighth place with a 4.6 rating. CBS was touting “Big Brother 5” as the most watched non-Olympic program among adults 18 to 49 with a 4.5 rating. Original runs of CBS’s reality show “Big Brother 5” and repeats of “CSI: Miami,” “Two and a Half Men,” “Without a Trace,” “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “48 Hours Mystery” all made the top 20 among persons 2+ and adults 18 to 49.

ABC’s Monday night preseason football game tied with a repeat of Fox’s “The Simpsons” for the No. 17 spot among adults 18 to 49 with a 2.7 rating. ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” came in 19th with a 2.6 rating in the demo, while two episodes of Fox’s “That ’70s Show” and one episode of Fox’s “Family Guy” finished in a three-way tie for the 20th spot with 2.5 ratings.