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Sinking Rating drops to new low on 15th night of coverage
NEW YORK (AP) -- Fewer and fewer people are tuning in to NBC's Sydney Olympics coverage, with the 15th night of taped telecasts drawing the lowest rating yet by a large margin. Friday night's program, which included Marion Jones competing in the long jump and the U.S. basketball team's two-point semifinal victory over Lithuania, pulled in a 10.6 rating and 20 share measured from 7:30 p.m. to midnight. That's 15 percent lower than the previous worst nightly rating for these Olympics (Tuesday's 12.4), 35 percent lower than what advertisers were told to expect (16.1), and 40-43 percent lower than NBC Sports predicted its programs would get (17.5 to 18.5). No night at any of the last three Summer Games rated worse than the 12.3 for the Closing Ceremonies at Seoul 12 years ago.
NBC has increased the number of national commercials it runs by an average of two per hour to satisfy advertisers expecting to reach larger audiences during the 17 days in Sydney. Sponsors paid up to $600,000 for a 30-second commercial in prime time. With two nights left to measure, the cumulative rating for the Olympics slipped to a new low of 14.2 with a 25 share. That's worse than for any Summer Olympics since the Tokyo Games in 1964, when NBC aired only 14 hours and averaged a 12.7 rating. Each rating point represents a little more than 1 million television households. Share is the percentage of in-use TVs tuned to a given program. Friday night's show had a 10.8 rating from 8-11 p.m., peaking with a 12.7 from 10:30-11. NBC decided to show all action on tape because Sydney is 15 hours ahead of the East Coast, and one factor probably hurting the ratings is the delay between when events are completed and when they are aired. Results are available on the Internet and on TV sportscasts up to 24 hours before NBC shows the competition. The Olympics also have to compete with the NFL, college football and baseball's pennant races. Other networks, though, have little incentive to try to lure audiences away from the Olympics, because Nielsen Media Research pushed back the official starting date of the new TV season two weeks to Oct. 2.
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