Vancouver 2010: NBC’s Opening Weekend Viewership Up 25% Over Torino

NBC has hit the ground running with the Vancouver games, as 117 million people watched the first weekend of the games on the networks of NBC Universal; almost six million more than watched the first weekend of the 2006 Torino Games.

The 28.6 million average viewers for the opening weekend of the Vancouver Games is the most for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics since the 1994 Lillehammer Games (39.9 million), which were driven to record numbers by the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan scandal.  The 28.6 million is nearly six million more and 25 percent higher than the opening weekend average viewership from Torino in 2006 (22.9 million).

Sunday’s primetime coverage on NBC drew 26.4 million viewers, more than three million more viewers than the first Sunday night in Torino (23.2 million) and more than the audience of the next three networks combined (CBS, Fox, and ABC drew 25.1 million).

In addition, NBCOlympics.com, has averaged 4.2 million unique users for the Vancouver Games, 250 percent higher than the opening weekend of the last Winter Games in Torino in 2006 (1.02 million)