RATINGS RISE AGAIN FOR SOCHI GAMES

The audience for the twelfth night of the Olympic Games climbed to 23.5 million with a solid 5.6 rating and a 15 share among the 18-49 age group Monday night, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings. Those numbers were up slightly — 4 percent — from the 2010 Vancouver Games. The strong numbers, however, pushed ratings down for all of NBC’s network rivals, some of whose programs posted their lowest ratings ever, including ABC’s three-hour The Bachelor, which averaged 7.7 million viewers. Indeed NBC’s audience for the Olympics surpassed the entire viewing audience for the other three major networks combined. The Olympics ratings also gave Jimmy Fallon a strong lead-in for his debut as host of the Tonight show. Fallon drew 11.31 million viewers, the most he has ever drawn. Jay Leno’s final Tonight telecast on Feb. 7 drew 11.90 million.