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The winter Olympics proved no match for television's gold-medal winner, "American Idol."
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The winter Olympics proved no match for television's gold-medal winner, "American Idol." Fox's phenomenally successful contest crushed the Olympics in head-to-head competition on Tuesday night, 27 million viewers to 16.1 million, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The Olympics recovered a bit after "Idol" went off the air, but its overall audience of 18.6 million was the least-watched winter Olympics telecast since Nagano's closing ceremonies in 1998, Nielsen said.
Since its opening on Friday, the Turin games have been running well below the 2002 Salt Lake City games in viewership interest. Much of that was expected, but Tuesday's rating was the first alarming sign for NBC that increased TV competition hastaken atoll.
"The competition from `Idol' is heavier than the Olympics has ever seen," said NBC Sports spokeswoman Alana Russo.
It doesn't figure to get any easier, with "Idol" and ABC's "Lost" on the air Wednesday. CBS' "Survivor" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" offer more competition on Thursday.
Even figure skating, the most popular winter Olympics sport for viewers, didn't help much on Tuesday. NBC filled about two-thirds of the hour during which it competed with "American Idol" with tape of the men's figure-skating competition.
Through five nights of Olympics coverage, NBC's average prime-time rating is 12.7 (a rating point represents 1,102,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 110.2 million TV homes). NBC said before the games started that it had promised its advertisers a rating of between 12 and 14. If it slips below that, NBC will have tomake it up toadvertisers with free commercial time.
"`American Idol' is clearly a phenomenon," said Randy Falco, president of the NBC Universal Television Group. "But we expected it and are tracking right where we planned to be at this point."
Between NBC and its affiliated cable networks, an estimated 65 percent of the nation's television homes havetuned inat least some of the games, Falco said.
(Agencies)
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事實證明冬奧會在美國的收視率無法與電視收視冠軍《美國偶像》抗衡。尼爾森媒體研究機構稱，上周二晚，福克斯電視網的當紅選秀比賽《美國偶像》的收視率擊敗了同期直播的冬奧會節目，觀眾人數分別是2700萬和1600萬。
尼爾森稱，《美國偶像》結束后，冬奧會的收視人數隨即有所增加，但也只有1860萬人，是1998年長野冬奧會閉幕式以來最低的收視數字。
都靈冬奧會自2月10日開幕以來，收視率明顯低于2002年鹽湖城冬奧會。這種狀況早有所預料，但上周二的收視率第一次給NBC電視網拉響了警報，日益激烈的收視率大戰對NBC造成了嚴重的影響。
NBC體育節目發言人艾倫·拉索說："《美國偶像》是冬奧會迄今為止遇到的最強大的競爭對手。"
星期三因為《美國偶像》和ABC電視網的電視劇《迷失》的播出，冬奧會的收視率也好不到哪去。星期四，CBS電視網播放的《幸存者》和《犯罪現場鑒證》將給冬奧會帶來更大的收視競爭。
星期二的時候，觀眾最愛看的冬奧會項目花樣滑冰，也沒貢獻多少收視率。在福克斯播放《美國偶像》的同時，NBC有三分之二的時間在播放男子花樣滑冰錄像。
冬奧會開幕5天以來，NBC黃金時間的收視率是12.7(這表示有110.2萬個家庭，即1.102億個有電視家庭的1%的人在收看電視節目)。NBC稱，在冬奧會開幕之前，他們向廣告商許諾收視率會在12%到14%之間，如果收視率下降低于這個標準，他們將提供給廣告商免費廣告時間作為補償。
NBC國際電視公司總裁蘭迪·法爾科說："《美國偶像》真是個奇跡，但是我也預計到了，我們現在正在按照計劃進行。"
法爾科說，估計有65%的看電視家庭通過NBC和其附屬有線電視網收看了至少一部分奧運會比賽。
(中國日報網站編譯)
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