SATURDAY NIGHT (OLYMPICS) FEVER

On Saturday, a day of the week that has become a repository for the television networks’ least successful entertainment shows, NBC’s coverage of the Olympics not only beat its rivals’ programming, it wiped their clocks. While the Olympics coverage averaged 26.08 million viewers, peaking in the 10:30 p.m. half-hour with 30.59 million, not a single rival program was even able to draw 3 million viewers, with the exception of CBS’s 48 Hours Mystery, which drew 3.35 million. On Sunday, NBC started off the night with a special titled Michael Phelps: America’s Golden Champion. The one-hour tribute broadcast attracted “only” 20.47 million viewers and brought down the network’s average for the night to 29.22 million. It peaked at 10:30 p.m. with 34.99 million viewers. Most of the rival shows recorded season lows.