Salt Lake City delivers big Winter Olympics ratings, again
Charlotte Bankes of France (red) and Raffaella Brutto of Italy (white) lead the pack during the Ladies' Snowboard Cross Small Final at the Winter Olympics on Feb. 16, 2018 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea. Credit: Getty Images / Clive Rose
Salt Lake City ranked last in television ratings among the 56 markets measured by Nielsen for NBC’s coverage of Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4. But savvy ratings-watchers knew that the Utah city likely would bounce back once the Winter Olympics started.
Sure enough, as usual Salt Lake City has delivered in a big way, leading all cities at the midpoint of the Pyeonchang Games with an average of 22.6 percent of homes tuned into prime time coverage of NBC and NBCSN.
Salt Lake City’s “share” figure also is impressive, with an average of 41 percent of homes with a television in use at the time tuned to the Games (not including digital coverage).
Denver, another traditional Winter Olympics ratings powerhouse, was a strong second halfway through the Games, averaging 22.1 percent of homes.
The rest of the top 10: Milwaukee (18.8), Seattle (18.7), Kansas City (18.4), San Diego (18.4), Minneapolis (18.2), Portland (18.1), Sacramento (18.0) and Austin (16.8).
No city in the Eastern Time Zone made the top 10.
New York ranked 39th out of 56 markets with an average rating of 12.6.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
