Whether you tuned into the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday to see the spectacle, the athletes, or James Bond and the Queen, a lot of you tuned in-- more than for any other Olympic opening ceremony that wasn't hosted in the United States, in fact. According to the numbers at Deadline, 40.7 million viewers watched the ceremony, which was tape-delayed for U.S. broadcast and strategically aired at prime time. The only opening ceremony to garner more viewers was the 2002 opener for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
That number is almost 6 million higher than that for the 2008 Beijing Games, which is impressive given the historic spectacle that China had on display that night. And numbers have remained strong for the opening few days of the Games themselves too. According to a tweet from AP sports writer David Bauder, the ratings for Saturday night's broadcast were up 8% over Beijing ,making it also the most-watched opening night for a non-U.S. Olympics. Highlights from last night included Ryan Lochte's triumph over American teammate Michael Phelps in the Men's 400 IM swimming competition, plus qualifying rounds for men's gymanstics-- OK, maybe I was the only one who was really into watching the early days of the men's gymnastics competition, but I promise it was fascinating.
We'll be bringing much more news about how the Olympic broadcasts are faring-- that is, when we're not caught up watching men's basketball streaming live online. So many sports, so little times!
