8.2 Million Tune to MSNBC - For Sport

An average audience of 8.22 million watched the USA hockey team defeat Canada, 5-3, nearly matching the best average viewership for a program on MSNBC. (Election Night Coverage, 8.23 million on Nov. 4, 2008).

The hockey game on MSNBC received a national household rating of 4.3, the third highest-rated program in MSNBC’s history behind the Democratic Presidential debate (2/26/08, 4.9 rating) and the analysis following the debate (4.4 rating).

NBCU's Sunday Olympic broadcasts were seen by 87 million total viewers, the most viewers for any day so far for the Vancouver Games, 16 million more and 22 percent higher than the comparable Sunday from the 2006 Games (72 million), according to data available today from The Nielsen Company.

The primetime coverage on NBC and MSNBC that included figure skating's original dance and alpine skiing's men's super combined on NBC and the USA-Canada hockey game on MSNBC had 69 million total viewers, the best viewership for the comparable Sunday night since the tabloid-fueled Lillehammer Games (79 million).

To date, more than half of all Americans (167 million) have watched the Vancouver Olympics on the networks of NBC Universal through the first 10 days of the Games; three million more than watched the first 10 days of the 2006 Winter Games (164 million).

The 26.0 million average viewers for the first 10 nights of the Vancouver Games is the most for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics since the Lillehammer Games (39.4 million). The 26.0 million is nearly six million more and 27 percent higher than the average viewership of the first 10 nights from Torino in 2006 (20.4 million).