As athletes continued to break world records in the last days of the 2008 Summer Olympics, the Beijing Games’ set a record of its own – as the most-watched Olympics ever.   
Global television broadcasts during the first ten days of the Games (August 8 – 17) attracted a cumulative TV audience of 4.4 billion viewers — or almost two-thirds of the world’s population, according to Nielsen.
In contrast, the 2004 Athens Summer Games attracted a total of 3.9 billion viewers worldwide, while the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney drew 3.6 billion total viewers.
Nielsen’s global audience estimates are …

More than half-way through the 2008 Beijing Olympics, U.S. fans are continuing to follow the Games online in strong numbers, Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
The top two U.S.-based Olympics online destinations, Yahoo Olympics and NBC Olympics, drew an average of 4.7 million and 4.3 million unique visitors each day between August 8 and August 18.
According to Nielsen, Olympics-related websites in the U.S. are drawing slightly larger audiences on work days than weekends. 
Nielsen also reported that daily traffic to NBC’s Olympics site typically peaked at noon during the first work week of the …

Among the many Olympics winners so far are a handful of advertisers, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Ads created especially for the Beijing Games by Coca-Cola, General Electric, Oreo, and Visa were among the best-remembered and most-liked commercials during the first week of the Beijing Olympics, according to Nielsen IAG, which uses an online panel to track the performance of advertising.
A Coca-Cola ad in which animated birds use straws swiped from Coke bottles to construct a nest resembling the Olympic stadium in Beijing was especially popular with Olympics viewers, Nielsen reported.
An …

Heading into Thursday night’s women’s gymnastics individual all-around finals, American gymnast Shawn Johnson leads her top competitors in online buzz, according to Nielsen Online.
Fan buzz between July 28 and August 13 overwhelmingly focused on Johnson, who was more than twice as likely to be discussed by bloggers than her teammate Nastia Liukin. 
Liukin was ranked second on Nielsen’s list of the seven most buzzworthy gymnasts competing in the individual finals.  China’s Jiang Yuyuan rounded out the top three.

ATHLETE
COUNTRY
INDEX

Shawn Johnson
U.S.
100

Nastia Liukin
U.S.
43

Jiang Yuyuan
China
16

Anna Pavlova
Russia
11

Yang Yilin
China
11

Steliana Nistor
Romania
8

Ksenia Semenova
Russia
3

Source: The Nielsen Company (July 28, 2008 …

Despite losing to Cuba in a closely contested game Wednesday evening, the Chinese women’s volleyball team claimed the top TV rating of all Olympics events broadcast on Chinese television on Wednesday, August 13, AGB Nielsen Media Research reported Thursday.
In China, 143 million viewers watched the China vs. Cuba game on CCTV 1 Wednesday evening, according to AGB Nielsen.  In comparison, 84 million Chinese tuned in for the men’s weightlifting 77kg final that aired on CCTV 2 during the same time period.
In three games on August 9, 11, and 13, the Chinese …

More than two billion people — almost one-third of the world’s population — watched the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony on Friday, August 8, Nielsen reported Thursday.
Nielsen’s estimates are based on television audience data collected from 38 key markets throughout the world, including host nation China, the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Italy, and Australia.
The Asia-Pacific region had the highest audience reach, with more than five in 10 people watching the opening ceremony.  Europe and North America followed with 30% and 24% reach, respectively.
Within Asia-Pacific, China had the highest percentage of …

Although it was a work day, online traffic to websites with Olympics-related content and video soared on Monday, August 11, according to Nielsen Online. 
Unique visitors to the video section of NBC’s Olympics site increased by nearly 140% – from 858,000 on Sunday, August 10, to 2,030,000 on Monday, August 11, Nielsen reported.
Meanwhile, traffic to Yahoo’s Olympics section grew 85% on Monday, compared to daily web traffic the prior day.

Rank:
U.A., Aug. 11
Website
Unique Audience:
Aug. 8
(in 000’s)
Unique Audience:
Aug. 9
(in 000’s)
Unique Audience:
Aug. 10
(in 000’s)
Unique Audience:
Aug. 11
(in 000’s)

1
Yahoo Olympics
1,477
3,324
2,839
5,253

2
NBC Olympics
2,664
4,008
3,264
4,560

3
AOL Olympics
395
1,010
1,205
1,192

4
Sports Illustrated Olympics
293
331
667
646

5
Beijing2008.cn
429
780
581
607

6
New York Times Olympics
341
466
301
482

7
ESPN Olympics
273
343
579
368

8
Fox Sports on MSN Olympics
49
95
259
182

9
USA Today Olympics
280
184
231
163

10
CBS …