Skiing Tops Olympic TV Viewership, While Hockey Scores Online

Freestyle skiing, which includes men’s and women’s moguls competition, was the most popular Olympic sport among U.S. TV weekend viewers through February 15, according to a minute-by-minute analysis of viewing conducted by The Nielsen Company. Nielsen reported that during NBC’s primetime broadcast coverage, an average of 26.9 million viewers watched the freestyle events in the first weekend of Olympic competition.

Downhill skiing was the second most popular sport, with an average of 26.7 million viewers watching coverage of the event. Luge coverage earned an average of 26.2 million viewers on NBC through Monday night.

Skiing might be most popular on TV, but in the blogosphere and in other online forums, the landscape is different. A Nielsen analysis of Internet buzz from February 9th to 18th shows that hockey is the most discussed Olympic sport online. Among all online messages related to winter Olympic sports, more than 30% were linked to hockey. Luge generated the second highest amount of buzz over that time, with almost 18%, followed by figure skating with 10% of Olympics sports buzz.

Nielsen also found that Sony was the most watched primetime advertised brand, on average, in the first three nights of Olympic events. The company ran one ad that was viewed by 30.7 million people. A spot run by “We are the World’s” Haiti relief effort earned the second most viewers with 29.7 million viewers. Meanwhile, Nike’s advertising was viewed by 28.9 million viewers. On average, commercial brands were viewed by an average of 24.7 million viewers.

A ranking of average audiences for all ads run by each brand during primetime broadcast Olympic coverage through the first three nights of competition is listed below: