Winter Olympics: Sochi Surges Past Torino On Sunday Night with 21.3M Viewers

NBC’s curated primetime coverage from the Sochi Olympics surpassed the comparable Sunday from the 2006 Winter Games, marking the ninth time in 10 nights the current quadrennium topped Torino.

The Peacock averaged a 12.1 rating/19 share and 21.3 million viewers with its Feb. 16 presentation that included Bode Miller’s emotional bronze-medal performance in the Super G skiing event. That beat the corresponding night from the 2006 Games in Torino, when NBC averaged an 11.6/18 share and 19.2 million, by 4% and 11%, respectively, according to live+same-day Nielsen data.  The comparable Sunday at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics averaged 23.3 million viewers and a 13.2 rating/21 share.

Last night’s primetime Olympics coverage on NBC from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. more than doubled the combined primetime viewership and household rating of ABC, CBS and Fox, which together scored 9.9 million viewers and a 6.0.

After two Saturdays and two Sundays of competition, NBC’s weekend daytime viewership averaged 11.6 million viewers, the best average to this point for a Winter Olympics in the daypart since the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. NBC’s Sochi weekend daytime viewership grew 23% from Torino’s 9.4 million viewers and 5% from Vancouver ‘s 11.1 million watchers for the comparable days.

Sunday’s live NBCSN coverage from 6 a.m.-3 p.m. (ET) averaged 2.6 million viewers, more than trebling the corresponding Sunday for the network’s coverage of the 2012 London Olympics.  To date from Saturday, Feb. 8 through Sunday, Feb. 16, NBCSN averaged 1.8 million viewers for its live coverage, more than twice its 776,000 average over the similar time frame from the London Games.

To date, a Winter Olympics-record 5.7 million hours of video have been consumed on NBC Olympics’ digital platforms – 80% via live streams.  The remaining video comprised NBC Olympics’ exclusive highlights.  The most popular of these on NBCOlympics.com: 2.6 million views for  Russian speed skater Olga Graf's wardrobe near-malfunction;  1.7 million for the  Russian Police Choir’s performance of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” during the Opening Ceremony: and 1.5 million for luger’s Shiva Keshavan fall off the sled, before completing the competition. To view the most viewed exclusive videos on NBCOlympics.com, click here.