NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in Beijing was the best overnight rating ever for non-U.S. Olympic Opening Ceremony earning a 21.5/37 (8-11:19 p.m. ET/PT). Additionally, NBCOlympics.com saw its most traffic ever on Friday with 70 million page views, 10 times more than the seven million page views on the opening day of the Athens Games. The overnight rating for the Opening Ceremony was a 19 percent increase over Athens in 2004 and 16 percent higher than Sydney in 2000, according to Nielsen Media Research data released today.

NON-U.S. OPENING CEREMONY OVERNIGHT RATINGS:

1) Beijing – 2008 – 21.5/37

2) Sydney – 2000 – 18.5/32

3) Seoul – 1988 – 18.3/33

4) Athens – 2004 – 18.0/30

5) Barcelona – 1992 – 16.5/32

Opening Ceremony in Atlanta in 1996 earned 27.2/47;

TOP 10 METERED MARKETS FOR OPENING CEREMONY:

1) San Diego – 26.5/49

2) West Palm Beach – 25.7/42

3) Sacramento – 24.3/43

4) Denver – 24.2/43

T5) San Francisco – 24.1/47

T5) Baltimore – 24.1/41

7) Indianapolis – 23.9/42

8) Salt Lake City – 23.5/49

9) Nashville – 23.4/37

10) St. Louis – 22.9/42

NBCOlympics.com garnered 70 million page views on 8/8/08 an increase of 900 percent and 10 times more than the opening day of the Athens Games in 2004 (7 million).

The 70 million page views are nearly 50 million more page views than the peak day in Athens (Day 4, 20.6 million).

NBCOlympics.com’s 4.2 million unique users show an increase of 496% over the unique users for the opening day of the Athens Games in 2004 (705,000).

Since August 1, 2008, NBCOlympics.com has accumulated more than 127 million page views, nearly half the TOTAL for the entire Athens Games.

If you missed the opening ceremony, you can relive the experience here. Here’s our coverage of the
2008 Beijing Olympics – Asian American Edition

Watch highlights of the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony